Tf^TRlE 
ULYSSES S.GRANT 

BY 

GENEEAL CHAELES KING 


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The True 
Ulysses S. Grant 



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The True 
Ulysses S. Grant 



By 



Charles King 

Brig.-Gcncral U. S. V.. i-^j^-^r) 



H '.'.'/; 'r-rr-yty-rt':'ht Illustrations 



Philadelphia and London 

J. B. Lippincott Company 
1914 



COPYRIGHT. 1914. BY J. H LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 



PUBLISHED OCTOBBR. IBU 



PRINTED DY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 

AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS 

PHILADELPHIA. U.S. A. 



OCT 15 IS14 






TO 
WEST POINT 

THE 

SCHOOL WHICH IN SPITE OF HIS AVERSION 

TO THE SWORD GAVE TO THE NATION THE 

INCOMPARABLE SERVICES 

OF 
ULYSSES S. GRANT 

THESE PAGES ARE DEDICATED 



PREFACE 

When invited to prepare the manuscript for this 
work the writer's first impulse was to decline. The 
subject, however, had for long years commanded his 
deep interest and much investigation. His admiration 
of the character and his study of the career of Ulysses 
Grant equalled probably those of his eminent biog- 
raphers, and finally, in the belief that there were virtues 
in the true Grant to which full prominence had not 
been given, possibly because Grant himself would have 
regarded them as matters of course, there came the 
desire to write of our great commander as he seemed 
to one of the least of these his subalterns, and from the 
fulness of a store of information garnered through 
reading and hearing for half a century this memoir 
practically wrote itself. The real work came when it 
had to be planed and pruned to the prescribed limits. 

Grant's own memoirs, the biographies of Badeau, 
James Grant Wilson and a score of writers, but espe- 
cially the soldierly pages of Horace Porter, James Harri- 
son Wilson and William Conant Church have been read 
again and again. From the lips of Sherman, Sheridan, 
Cullum, Crook, Augur, Pitcher, Buckner, Longstreet, 
Hebert, Hodges, Upton, Chetlain, Professors Davies, 
Mahan, Church and Kendrick, and from many an officer 
of the Armies of the Tennessee, Cumberland and Poto- 
mac, came in the course of years a flood of reminiscence, 
and from old neighbors of the dreary days of " Hard- 
scrabble " and Jo Daviess County many a detail of 
pathetic interest. 

To one and all these, therefore, thanks are due, and 
in the matter of our illustrations the worthy mayors of 



PREFACE 

Georgetown and Galena (Messrs. Charles B. Fee and 
J. W. Westwick), Lieutenant Harry L. King, U. S. 
Cavalry, the Chicago Historical Society, companions of 
the Illinois Cominandery of the State of Illinois, Mili- 
tary Order of the Loyal Legion, Mr. Charles H. Ste- 
phens of Philadelphia, Mr. F. H. Meserve of New York 
who has permitted so many reproductions from his col- 
lection, Mrs. Frank H. Jones (Nellie Grant), Mr. 
Hamlin Garland, Mr. E. Ross Burke, the St. Louis 
Post-Dispatch, Mr. Warren Crawford of Chicago, others 
whose names appear in connection with the illustrations, 
and finally General E. A. Spencer, Mr. C. F. Blanke and 
Major Julius Pitzman of St. Louis — the latter intimately 
associated nearly sixty years ago with the fortunes and 
misfortunes of the Grants — are entitled to grateful 
acknowledgment. 

And now, with full realization of the responsibilities, 
but without the Grant-like lack of fear, this memoir is 
submitted by 

The Author 

Milwaukee, April 30, 1914 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Ancestry and Birth 1 1 

II. Boyhood and Mother 22 

III. A Soldier in Spite of Himself 31 

IV. Cadet Life and Comrades 40 

V. West Point and Its Professors 49 

VI. West Point and Its Curriculum 57 

VII. First Impressions of Army Life 70 

VIII. An Interrupted Courtship 80 

IX. The War with Mexico 88 

X. A Fighting Quartermaster 95 

XI. The Soldier of San Cosme 104 

XII. Peace — the Pacific Coast and Trouble 116 

XIII. The Uses of Adversity 132 

XIV. Soldier a Second Time 140 

XV. "The Stars of Sixty-one" 151 

XVI. Soldier in Spite of Staff and Kindred 162 

XVII. The Rewards of Donelson 174 

XVIII. From Donelson to Shiloh 185 

XIX. Shiloh — the One Surprise 196 

XX. The Sorrow after Shiloh 204 

XXI. Grant and Rawlins 211 

XXII. Grant and McClernand 220 

XXIII. Grant and a Great Campaign 233 

XXIV. Grant in the Hour of Triumph 239 

XXV. What Followed Vicksburg 247 

XXVI. Grant and Thomas 256 

XXVII. Grant and Sherman 267 

XXVIII. Grant and the Lieutenant-Generalship.... 275 
XXIX. The Lull before the Storm 284 



CONTENTS 

XXX. Obstacles and Delays 300 

XXXI. The Last Campaign 313 

XXXII. Peace and Perplexities 323 

XXXIII. Problems and Politics 333 

XXXIV. On to the White House 341 

XXXV. President and Commander-in-Chief 352 

XXXVI. Storm and Stress 362 

XXXVII. Foreign Travel and Final Return 372 

XXXVIII. The Final Blow 382 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Grant as Major-General Commanding in the West. Frontispiece 

Jesse Root Grant 1 8 

Hannah Simpson Grant 1 8 

Birthplace of Ulysses S. Grant, Point Pleasant, Ohio 20 

The Leather Store at Galena, 111 20 

Grant's Boyhood Home, Georgetown, Ohio 22 

Major-General Charles F. Smith 52 

"White Haven," the Old Home of the Dent Family near St. 

Louis 76 

Sketch of the Grant and Dent Farms and Roads to St. Louis 

and Jefferson Barracks 86 

Ulysses S. Grant, While Lieutenant 4th Infantry 118 

" Hardscrabble " as at Present 132 

Colonel Dent's House in St. Louis Where Grant u'as Married, 

1848 134 

House Where Grant Lived in St. Louis in 1859 134 

First House at Galena, 111., Occupied by Grant and His Family 

in 1860-61, as it now Looks after Many Repairs 138 

U. S. Grant as a Brigadier-General, November, 1861 152 

Grant's Galena Comrades-in-Arms 162 

Major-General James H. Wilson at the Close of the Civil War 216 

Grant's Old Grimsley and Bridle 234 

General W. T. Sherman 284 

Grant at Cold Harbor 310 

The McLean Homestead, Appomattox 320 

Grant and His Personal StafT 324 

Julia Dent Grant in 1866 340 

Parlor of the Galena Home as Presented to Grant after the 

Civil War 348 

Hon. Hamilton Fish 352 

Hon. Elihu B. Washburne 352 

Grant the Banker, 1883 380 

The Last Days. Grant and Family at Mount McGregor. .. . 386 



The True 
Ulysses S. Grant 

CHAPTER I 
ANCESTRY AND BIRTH 

Forty-five miles from Cincinnati and a little south 
of east there lies a country town that should live in his- 
tory. At the time of Abraham Lincoln's election to the 
presidency it mustered probably a thousand souls. It 
numbered possibly two hundred voters whose suffrages 
went largely with those of the Democratic party. It 
seems that most people of southeastern Ohio had been 
Southern in sentiment and pro-slavery in politics until 
that April morning of 1861, when the guns of Sumter, 
solemnly booming their parting salute to the flag they 
had so vehemently yet vainly defended, sounded a 
reveille that woke the sleeping North. 

Then of a sudden an apparently passive, peace-loving 
nation that knew little of the use cf arms, came clamor- 
ing to the recruiting offices when the President issued 
his call for men. Their one demand v/as to be led 
against those whose aim was the destruction of the 
Union and whose act had been the humbling of the Flag. 
The transformation was as sudden as it was surprising. 
The South had looked for nothing like it. Long accus- 
tomed to dominate in the affairs of the nation, having 
only fifteen years earlier compelled and brought about 
an utterly unjust war for the purpose of enlarging and 
extending slave territory, having long cherished the 
belief that the North, absorbed in commercial pursuits, 
would shrink from fighting even in defense of a prin- 
ciple, the South had now to face a war for which, like 
that with Mexico, it was mainly responsible, but which 

II 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

promised very different results. Yet the South was con- 
fident. Late as early April the greatest city of the Union, 
New York, had listened unremonstrant to secession 
speeches, and viewed without protest secession emblems 
flaunted in the corridors of some of its leading hotels. 
Ten hours and all this was changed. The news from 
Charleston broke the shell of tolerance, and the pent-up 
patriotism of the North burst forth. Its best and bravest 
sought instant service, and, in proportion to population 
and previous condition of political servitude, no commun- 
ity outdid that of little Georgetown, Brown County, Ohio. 

Four generals and one colonel, graduates of West 
Point, and nine more officers of general or field rank, all 
reared in that peaceful township, were enrolled for de- 
fense of the L^nion. For the cause of the South, in spite 
of divided sentiment as to slaver}', and even as to right of 
secession, it seems to have furnished none. As for indi- 
vidual merit or value of officers bom or " raised '' in 
Georgetown, the great cities of the North combined can 
lay claim to nothing to match a single record of a George- 
town boy, known to the world as Ulysses Simpson Grant. 

That was not his baptismal name. Hiram Ulysses * 
he had been registered in babyhood, Hiram being his 
father's choice, Ulysses that of a grandmother who had 
read much of that soldier solon of the Trojan war. 
Nor was Georgetown his birthplace. " Ulyss," as he 
seems to have been hailed about the homestead, first 
saw the light of day at Point Pleasant on the banks of 
the Ohio, only a few miles away in Claremont County. 
But in that beautiful hill country over against the Ken- 
tucky shore he spent his boyhood, and at the age of 
seventeen set forth upon a career he never would have 
chosen, enlisted, as it were, in a service utterly repug- 

* Grant was never formally baptized until late in life, and 
then, by his own choice, as Ulysses S. He would not take the 
full name of Simpson, which was borne by his younger brother, 
but elected to be baptized as he had been so long and well known 
to the Nation. 



ANCESTRY AND BIRTH 

nant to his tastes and ambitions, became the foremost 
leader in a profession for which he had felt himself the 
least fitted, and the foremost citizen in a nation whereof 
he had deemed himself among the most obscure. Born 
but a few years before him and but a few hours' journey- 
beyond the winding river, reared in poverty and 
obscurity exceeding that of the Ohio boy destined to 
become his right arm, Abraham Lincoln, the wisest, the 
gentlest, the greatest of the nation's leaders, rose, 
through thought and observation of men, to guide the 
Union through the crisis of its history. Study and 
statesmanship bore him on to the pinnacle of fame. 

The Ohio lad who proved his main reliance was 
neither scholar, student, nor even sound in his knowl- 
edge of men. Our modern Ulysses won his way to 
eminence through sheer soldiership — about the last 
thing on earth he would have selected as the means. 
Therefore is his career the most remarkable of his 
day and generation if not of our national history. It 
has even persuaded some writers into the belief that 
he was what they called him — Grant, " The Man of 
Mystery." 

Of the lives of other men who had become great it 
would seem that, unlike Lincoln, Grant had read but 
little. Speaking of this, he declared in after life that 
what he most wished to know of the great leaders of 
men was that concerning which the least was generally 
written : he longed to hear of the boy life, the home life, 
the school life, the formative period in the lives of those 
whom the world had declared famous. He wished to 
study the influences that had served to mold the char- 
acter of men of eminence, of commanding powers in 
the affairs of peace or of surpassing generalship in the 
field of war. And now w^ere he to study the pages of 
his own life, though he has had more biographers, 
apparently, than any other American, he might suffer 
keen disappointment, for beyond his own modest narra- 

13 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

tive there is little if anything to draw from, so placid 
and uneventful were the days of his boyhood, so serene 
and simple the village life in which he moved and had 
his being. 

Grant himself cared little for genealogy. Great 
names and lofty lineage inspired him with no especial 
feeling of awe, much less of reverence. In the presence 
of royalty he later stood quite unabashed and calmly 
at ease. It mattered little to him from what particular 
clan across the seas his sires were sprung. It was suffi- 
cient for him that because for eight generations his 
immediate forebears had made their way on American 
soil, he could claim to be thoroughly American. When 
in large numbers the descendants of the proud old 
Grant clan answered the call of their putative head, a 
field marshal of the British Army, our Grant courteously 
but finnly declined. " We have been Americans over 
two hundred years," said he, and he could trace his 
descent in unbroken line back to Matthew Grant, to 
Dorchester, Massachusetts, and to May, 1625, The 
Grants had been Americans too long, he thought, to feel 
sure they had ever been Scotch. 

But there are those to whom family tradition means 
more than it did to Grant. It is for the benefit of such, 
therefore, that his genealogy is here given as recorded 
by James Grant Wilson : 

1. Matthew and Priscilla ( ) married 1625. 

2. Samuel and Mary (Porter) married 1658. 

3. Samuel and Grace (Miner) married 1688. 

4. Noah and Martha (Huntington) married 1717. 

5. Noah and Susannah (Delano) married 1746. 

6. Noah and Rachel (Kelly) married 1791. 

7. Jesse Root and Hannah (Simpson) married 1821. 

8. Hiram Ulysses, later known as Ulysses Simpson, born 

April 27, 1822. 

Of all these ancestors few achieved distinction of 
any kind. The first Matthew made his home at Wind- 
sor, on the banks of the Connecticut, and for no less 

14 



ANCESTRY AND BIRTH 

than forty years was county surveyor. His eldest son, 
the first " Sam " Grant in the American line, took up 
lands on the opposite bank from Windsor, and to the 
days when one of their kith and kin sat as chief magis- 
trate of the entire nation, those lands were occupied by 
descendants of the original Sam. 

Troublous times came to the colonists. Quitting 
England in quest of the blessings of religious liberty, 
the Pilgrim Fathers had landed on the " stem and rock- 
bound coast," where they speedily showed themselves as 
intolerant of forms of worship other than their own 
as ever had been the narrowest of the church party at 
home. The early days were to the full as strenuous as 
ever had been those of their elders in Albion. Beset 
by savage foes, the settlers tilled the fields with their 
antique firearms strapped to the plough handles. They 
appeared even at divine worship full panoplied for 
fight. They took their king's shilling and '' listed " for 
the wars against French and Indian, learning much 
thereby that reacted on His Majesty's loyal forces when 
later his recalcitrant subjects denounced in convention 
their monarch and his minions, fiercely as in their 
covenant they renounced the devil and all his works. 
Noah and Sol Grant, of the fifth descending generation 
from Matthew, fought valiantly as commissioned 
officers in the British ranks, and both were killed in 
1756. Noah, the next, he of the sixth generation and 
the grandfather of the great Grant of our day, was just 
nine years old when his father and uncle died fighting 
for the king's colors, and twenty years thereafter with 
all his might he lived and fought against them. He 
" went to the wars " with the Connecticut line, served 
all through from Bunker Hill to Yorktown, yet in the 
midst of war's alarms was human enough to yield, as 
later did his illustrious grandson, to promptings of the 
tender passion. Unlike the latter, he had not to wait 
until the close of hostilities to claim the lady of his love. 

15 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Soon after the surrender of Comwallis he found him- 
self once more in Connecticut, father of two sturdy little 
Grants, but a widower. Leaving the elder lad with 
kin folk at home, Noah took Peter, the younger, to 
Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, and as " Cap " 
Grant, the characteristic American abbreviation of his 
military title, started life anew, presently marrying for 
the second time, and this time a name suggestive of the 
shamrock rather than the thistle, for the grandmother 
of our Ulysses was a Kelly. Later still one more move 
was made and this time to southern Ohio. 

In this move young Peter did not participate. 
Peter's mother had been a Connecticut Yankee, and her 
boy was bom with a sense of the value of money and a 
gift for business. Noah, the father, like many another 
soldier, had neither. Peter had no prejudice against 
his stepmother, nor the brothers and sisters who speedily 
came to swell the family expense account, but he saw 
the need of cutting loose and providing for himself. 
In brief, Peter moved to Maysville, Kentucky, per- 
severed, prospered, married, raised a large family and 
a larger business, becoming owner of a tannery among 
other properties, taking to his roof and heart again the 
aging and impecunious father, when in 1805 Noah's 
second wife died, "leaving .seven children," says our 
own Grant in his Memoirs, the two youngest going with 
their father to live upon the bounty of the one pros- 
perous and thrifty member of the family. When Peter 
Grant was finally drowned in the Kanawha, in 1825, he 
was one of the wealthy men of the West, and he had 
been a devoted son to the Revolutionary soldier and a 
protector to many of his younger kinsfolk. 

Of these latter, however, there were some who 
strove to make their own way in the world. Foremost 
was the eldest of Peter's half brothers, Jesse Root. 
Jesse, at the breakup of the family in 1805. found a 
home in the household of Judge Tod, of Deerfield, 

16 



ANCESTRY AND BIRTH 

Ohio. Good and charitable folk must these have been, 
for they took the motherless boy to their fireside and 
cherished him as though he had been their own. A 
hard-headed, argumentative citizen young Jesse grew 
to be, a man never conspicuous for softness of heart or 
sweetness of disposition, yet to his dying day Jesse 
Grant could never speak of Judge Tod or the judge's 
gentle wife without emotion. " She was the most 
admirable woman I ever knew," he often declared. As 
for the judge, there was no bound to the respect and 
esteem in which Jesse held him. As an inmate of their 
home it is presumable that Jesse must have well known 
the son, who, in point of public life and prominence, 
outranked the genial and kindly father. Governor Tod, 
the son, became one the nation heard of and the state 
admired, but in the eyes of Jesse Root the governor 
never stood on a plane with his father, the judge. 

It was presently the lot of Jesse Grant to become 
identified with another famous family and world-re- 
nowned name. For a year or so he had been taken over 
by Peter to learn the trade of a tanner. Returning to 
Deerfield, Jesse found a home and employment with a 
family of Browns — benevolent and unpretentious people 
who might never have been heard of but for a son, 
John, a mere boy when Jesse, a well-grown youth, lived 
in daily association with him. They grew to know each 
other better, to differ widely in their views on political 
matters, but to remain good friends. " He was a man 
of great purity of character," declared Jesse, after- 
wards, "of high moral and physical courage," as 
recorded by Jesse's famous son, " but a fanatic and 
extremist in whatever he advocated." This was said of 
him who later became known to the world as " Ossa- 
watomie " Brown. This was the Ossawatomie of 
whom two million or more battling men in blue were 
destined to sing that his body lay mouldering in the 
grave as his soul was marching on. This was he whose 
2 17 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

mad fanaticism led him, with a handful of followers, 
to attempt the invasion of a sovereign state, and to die 
self-martyred on the scaffold. This was he who, before 
surrendering to Colonel Robert E, Lee at Harper's 
Ferry, practically brought about the tremendous war 
which was to close only when his chivalric captor should 
in turn surrender to the chivalric son of his boy friend 
and house mate, Jesse Grant. Verily, it would seem 
that in Brown County, Ohio, were centred for the time 
the destinies of the surrounding nation. Verily, there 
is food for thought in the fact that while the fathers 
of John Brown and Ulysses Grant were dwelling under 
the same roof in southern Ohio, there were, a few years 
later, to be spending their boyhood in Ohio towns within 
a few hours' ride of one another the three embryo 
soldiers destined to become, in the tremendous scenes 
soon to follow, the foremost of the generals who fought 
to save the Union — Grant, Sherman and Sheridan. 

For a time after launching out for himself Jesse 
Grant conducted a small tannery at Ravenna. Then he 
moved his little " plant " to Point Pleasant, a beautiful 
spot on the Ohio. In June, 1821, he married Hannah 
Simpson, then in her twenty-first year, the third child 
of John Simpson, of Montgomery Coimty, Pennsyl- 
vania, a man who cared as little for genealogy as his 
son-in-law cared much. John Simpson could tell 
nothing of his line further back than his grandfather. 
Jesse Grant had every birth, death and date for seven 
generations of Grants at his fingers' ends. Jesse 
Grant, though engaged in a business that yielded small 
profits, was keen and thrifty. Jesse Grant, moreover, 
was a man of parts. Schooling he had had next to none, 
but he had learned to spell, to cipher, and he taught 
himself to write. A more rapacious reader than Jesse 
Grant was not to be found in southern Ohio. He bor- 
rowed every book he could lay hands on and laboriously 
mastered the contents. He pored over the papers, and 

18 



ANCESTRY AND BIRTH 

took part in impromptu debates innumerable. He 
studied politics with especial avidit)', and " Harr>' of 
the West," Henry Clay of Kentucky, was Jesse's polit- 
ical file leader. Before he was twenty-one Jesse Grant 
had begun writing to the papers — a fad he clung to long 
years of his life, even after his soldier son besought 
that he stop it. There was a time, just after his mar- 
riage, when, weakened by fever and ague, Jesse became 
impoverishcil, but when able to move to Georgetown, 
where there were better facilities and abundant bark 
for his tanner}', he began again to prosper. He was 
aided in his economics by a gentle and sympathetic 
wife, whom their first-lxDni — the boy Hiram — devotedly 
loved. She bore quite a family and reared her birdlings 
as befitted folk in very moderate circumstances. Jesse 
was a sturdy and independent soul and had little sym- 
pathy for men who owed, and less for men who failed. 
Ihe time was to come when this trait was to tell heavily 
on his first-bom, but the boyhood years of that eldest 
lu)pe were at least as free from care and hardship as 
they were from luxury' of any kind. 

Born on the 27th of April, 1822, the future foremost 
^itizcn of the I'nitcd States sjK'nt his babyhoorl in a little 
frame cottage close to the banks of the ( )hio. The site 
and scene arc beautiful. The home was humble in the 
extreme, but it sufficed for all their needs until the 
baby boy was over a year old. Then Jes.se Grant bundled 
up his few belongings and moved northeastward to 
Georgetown, in the adjoining county. 

The business sagacity of Jesse was manifest in 
this nujve. The little tannery on the outskirts of the 
jicaceful country village prospered from the start. 
Within the second year of his venture Jesse was able to 
build a comfortable two-story house of brick and stone. 
By the time the chubby- faced first-bom was toddling 
and tumbling abf)Ut the new premises, the cradle was 
again in requi^Jti-'n .n,l to Ulysses was bom a baby 

'9 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

brother. In the course of the eight or ten years in 
which he was waxing in strength and usefulness there 
came sisters, and yet another baby boy, until George- 
town could have boasted of six young Grants who, in 
order of rank and " entry into service," as soldiers say, 
are recorded as follows: i. Hiram Ulysses. 2. Simp- 
son. 3. Clara. 4. Virginia. 5. Orvil L., and 6. Mary 
Frances. 

And as these little folk in turn began to talk and 
toddle it is something to remember that in their eyes 
the eldest, the big brother, was for long years decidedly 
a hero. The paternal given name of Hiram appears 
seldom to have been used. " Lys," or at most " Ulyss," 
the youngsters and the neighbors called him, and the 
father seemed eventually to have followed suit. Just 
why he named him Hiram, there having been no Hiram 
of consequence upon the family tree, the father has not 
taken the trouble to explain. That the boy's maternal 
grandmother had developed a taste for classic reading 
— that she was a woman of some culture — is manifest 
in the choice of the name she so greatly admired. The 
little man in whose coming and christening she took 
so deep an interest, lived to adorn and honor it as even 
his fond mother could hardly have dared to dream — 
Ulysses, the warrior sage of heroic days whose life has 
been the theme of the poets from the days of Homer, 
and the meditation of readers for centuries. Was 
there something of the Sybil in that second wife of plain 
John Simpson, the Pennsylvania farmer, — he who had 
found in southern Ohio a new home and a new mother 
for that silent, self -effacing, prayerful daughter? It 
might well be claimed for her ; it might well be credited 
that in the choice of that name she had unerringly fore- 
seen the future of that baby boy ; for, when all is said 
and done, when all his ventures as soldier and man are 
set over and summed up as against the puny column of 
his faults and foibles, lived there ever a man since 




BIRTHPLACE OP ULYSSES S. GRANT. 
POINT PLEASANT. OHIO 

From "Ulysses S.Grant, His I-ife .ind Ch.iracler." liy Hamlin Garland. 
By kind permission of the authur and Messrs. 1 '..ciLleday. l'a>;e tV Cn. 







u 




THE LEATHER STORE AT GALENA. ILL. 

See page 136 

From a pliolograi.li in tlie ijosscssionof Mi Warren Crawford 
of Cliicajjo 



ANCESTRY AND BIRTH 

Ulysses of old, so worthy the glowing description 
j>enncd by Fcnelon and recalled and applied to our own 
Ulysses by William Conant Church? " His heart is of 
an unfathomable depth; his secret lies beyond the line 
of subtlety and fraud ; he is the friend of truth, saying 
nothing that is false, but, when it is necessary, conced- 
ing what is true; his wisdom, as it were, a seal upon his 
lips, v.hj-h i^ never broken but for an important pur- 
IK)se 

Stu :\ lii'- catalogue of Christian names, study the 
life and character of this first-lx)ni son of Jesse Grant. 
and choose if jx^ssiblc a name that shall better tit the 
nun. 



CHAPTER II 
BOYHOOD AND MOTHER 

Among the frugal, simple folk that made up the 
mass of the population of our western States, most boys 
worked in one way or another as soon as they were big 
enough to work at all. The " senior subaltern " of the 
household in the new two-story home on the banks of 
the White Oak began before he was big enough to nm 
errands. Grant, the father, divided his time between 
his tannery and the newly-purchased lands. Grant, 
the son, decided before he was five that he .preferred 
the farm. Jesse had bought a number of acres along 
the wooded banks of the creek, together with a cleared 
patch or two closer to the household, and on one of 
these stood the barn. The mother hand first led the 
youngster to watch the workmen, and then sought to 
restrain him as, eagerly, the little fellow strove to reach 
the horses plodding home with their load of lumber. 
Barely three years of age was he who later was destined 
to ride at the head of two million of men at arms, when 
first he was set astride a horse, and it appeared that the 
youngster even at that early age had views of his own 
as to horsemanship. It was told of him in the family 
that the chubby fists instantly gathered up the reins, 
and that he promptly and impatiently shook oflF the 
hand that sought to aid him in his seat. Before he was 
four the boy had backed every horse that came to the 
little farm, and was spending hours each day studying 
the pair his father bought. His earliest ambition was 
to ride. From mom till night when a five-year-old he 
hung about the horses. If they were afield hauling wood 
or stone, he was perched contentedly astride the near 
one. By the time he was seven he was practising aero- 



BOYHOOD AND MOTHER 

batic feats of his own devising; nor had he yet seen a 
circus ; that and resultant essays in equitation were yet 
to come. Before he was ten years of age all Brown 
County, however, seems to have heard of that small 
hoy of the Grants — the little chap that could ride like a 
monkey, standing and balancing on one leg, running the 
horses up and down the soft roadway along the creek 
bank, " far more at home in saddle," as was presently 
aid of him, " than he'll ever be at school." 

But it was not yet time for school. ^loreover, 
schools in those days and in Ohio were few and far 
between. Up to the time he was ten years old about 
all the schooling that came his way was at his 
mother's knee, and there the boy learned lessons that 
influenced his entire life. Home from his labor in the 
tannery or the field, Jesse, the father, lost himstlf 
speedily in the columns of the Cincinnati papers, in the 
pages of his book, in letters to the press, or in the 
evenings of debate on mooted questions at the town hall. 
The mental and moral training of the children in their 
tender years seems to have been left entirely to the 
mother, and what they owe to her no one of their 
number has ever adetjuately told. I'lysses, at least, 
strove hard to do so, fur in letters written to her long 
years after, especially in those that were penned in his 
" plebedom " at West I'oint. he opened his heart, and 
told her how deeply her teachings had taken root — how 
firmly imi)lanted were the lessons of truth, patience, 
self-sacrifice and of reverence for religion that he hail 
learned from her gentle lips. A rare woman was 
ilaiinah Simpson; sweet and comely to look upon in 
youth, she had gained in her maturity an added dignity 
of bearing. A silent, obscr%ant nature was hers. 
Deeply religious in temj)crament. reareil in the austere 
and solemn tenets of the Methodist church, she looked 
upon life with eyes that saw only its duties and respon- 
sibilities. She had a smile for every one, but laughter 

23 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

with her was as rare as wrath or anger. Soft of speech, 
just, gentle, yet firm and steadfast, she proved an 
admirable help and stay for the sometimes erratic 
Jesse; but for her children she was a guide and com- 
fort unspeakable. Chiding when necessar>% but " nag- 
ging " never, she watched over her little brood with the 
vigilance of the mother partridge. Shielding them ever 
from that which menaced their innocence or their well- 
being, she reared her children pure of heart and pure of 
speech, and the best of her, because he had the most of 
her, seems to have concentrated in Ulysses. 

Before he was six the boy was helping her about the 
woodshed and kitchen. Before he was seven he could 
groom and harness, feed and water, ride and drive any 
horse about the growing farm. By the time he was 
eight he lived all day afield, doing the " chores " about 
the house, bringing in the wood and water and driving 
the cows to and from pasture. But his glory and his 
principal care were his father's horses ; the tannery he 
could never abide. He saw nothing in the trade that 
did not repel him, whereas he would gravely study for 
hours the work of the plowmen, the woodmen, the har- 
rowing, seeding, planting and mowing, and, as best he 
could, strove to imitate or improve upon their methods. 
But about the horses he had methods of his own. It 
began to dawn upon the elders and their " help " that 
between the lad and his big four-footed friends there 
lived some strange sympathy and understanding. With 
less trouble, with fewer words and no blows, the boy 
could get more out of the farm horses in the way of 
willing work than could any of the grown folk. 

And so it resulted that in the fall of the year when 
the wood choppers had felled the destined trees, though 
small for his years and only eight that spring, it was the 
boy who took charge of all the hauling. The men 
loaded or unloaded the firewood, but no one thought 
of meddling with the team. Perched on top of the 

24 



BOYHOOD AND MOTHER 

pile, with his bright, blue-gray eyes and his sun-tanned, 
cheery face, the lad would cluck to his friends, the 
horses, and they would start for home. Almost any 
farm-bred boy would probably be whistling, but if ever 
our Ulysses hummed or whistled an air he could not 
for the life of him tell the name of it. All tunes were 
alike to him, and he had no love for any. Only once in 
all his career is there record of his being moved by 
music, martial, sacred or secular; that was when, at his 
signal, the stars and stripes slowly floated to the peak 
of the flagstaff overlooking the mighty river that from 
that instant flowed " unvexed to the sea," and the massed 
bands, and the myriad voices of a host of battle-worn 
men broke forth in the triumphant strains of thanks- 
giving and praise, and the walls of Vicksburg resounded 
to the solemn harmonies of " Old Hundred." 

But Jesse Grant, himself unschooled, was none the 
less a student and a thinker; Jesse, who was self-edu- 
cated, believed implicitly in education for his children, 
and early in the boyhood of his first-born began to look 
about for schools. Such as they had in Brown and 
Claremont Counties were known as " subscription 
schools," and in one of these Ulysses began his lessons. 
He didn't like them. He much preferred the farm, and 
the sight of a strange horse would tempt him away from 
his desk and into the street, the misconduct leading to 
reprisals such as were practised in that day and gen- 
eration. 

When Ulysses Grant was eleven years of age he 
was doing much of the plowing, planting, seeding and 
hoeing about his father's farm, yet, obedient to his 
father's wishes, never missing a day of the school term. 
When he was placed a quarter, and later a winter, at a 
time, as a boarder in a private school at Hillsboro, or 
over at Maysville, Kentucky, with local masters of much 
repute, Ulysses declared that such was his natural 
repugnance to school books that he believed the money 

25 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

spent on his education was utterly wasted. Moreover, 
it seems that by one of his masters, an expert in that 
method of imparting instruction, the future head of 
the nation was occasionally and soundly flogged. 

It is characteristic of Grant that he should write of 
this teacher, Mr. J. D. White, that he was a kind- 
hearted, excellent man, that he did only as did almost 
every other pedagogue of his time, — that he, the often 
birched and berated pupil, bore no ill will whatever to 
the wielder of the rod. What we should like to know, 
and what he does not tell us, is just how he took it at 
the time. It is hazarding little to say that he bore it 
silently, with set teeth and perhaps tearless eyes. It 
is hazarding nothing to say that other future lieutenant 
generals of the army of the United States were learning 
z'is a tergo the lessons of fortitude and self repression, 
for, each in his day, two of them, Sherman and Sheri- 
dan, as we have said, were reared almost within long 
gunshot of each other and barely one hundred miles 
northeast of the Georgetown home. 

And yet Ulysses was anything but a vicious or 
heedless boy. He was as square and dependable a lad 
as lived in all Ohio. He was industry itself about the 
farm. He was gentle, docile, thoughtful about the 
house. He was of serious mold, little given to mirth 
or mischief. He says that in his home life he was never 
punished or scolded, for his father appreciated his use- 
fulness and was probably proud of his horse knowledge. 
At an unusually early age the boy was permitted to take 
any of the animals, winter or summer, single or double, 
and go driving about the country, sometimes visiting 
his Simpson grandparents, frequently visiting Cincin- 
nati ; once or twice driving neighbors, where stages 
were not to be had, distances of seventy or eighty miles. 
In summer time he went swimming with other farm or 
village lads, in winter sledding, sleighing and skating. 
He had no real intimacies among his neighbors and no 

26 



BOYHOOD AND MOTHER 

real enemies. He had many friends, and so far as he 
recalled, only one fight, and that was with a boy bigger 
than himself and something of a bully. " Ulyss " was 
slender but sinewy, small but plucky, and when tor- 
mented beyond endurance turned upon his tormentor, 
as the latter hoped and planned in anticipation of easy 
victory over the lad he envied because so many others 
hailed him as the best rider in southern Ohio. It may 
be that this happened just after " Ulyss " had won the 
plaudits of all Brown County and the ringinaster's five 
dollars by riding the trick pony when the great event of 
the year took place and the circus came to Georgetown. 
It was a battered but victorious Ulysses that went home 
after that memorable combat on the banks of White 
Oak Creek ; nor was that the only adventure that befell 
him thereon. Once when fishing with a boy friend (the 
future Admiral Ammen), it fell out that the future 
general fell in and was for a moment or two in grievous 
plight. Admiral Ammen laughed throughout a life- 
time over the picture presented by the bedraggled 
Ulysses, as he led him dripping up the bank. His 
blouse or " jumper " was of red and white striped Mar- 
seilles when the boys went forth together, but the stripes 
were merged in one limp and lurid blotch as they drew 
near home. 

When fifteen years of age young Grant's repute as 
a horseman had spread to adjoining counties. He knew 
the points of a good roadster as well as any trader along 
the Ohio, but his chief delight was in a fine saddler. 
Over in Kentucky the fox trot and the single foot were 
the gaits most favored, but Ulysses had a way of teach- 
ing the pace that added to his fame and not a little to his 
fortune. In his Memoirs this fact finds no mention — 
neither does he tell about the memorable day when in 
the presence of all the pretty girls for miles around and 
hundreds of town and village folk, he circled the circus 
astride that plunging trick mule (neither does he men- 

27 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

tion his later fame as by long odds the best rider of his 
day at West Point), but Brown and Claremont Counties 
knew it, and farmers far and near brought horses to 
the fields of Jesse Grant, there to be taught to pace by 
Jesse's eldest son. In this way and in " hiring out " to 
convey travellers long distances over the Ohio and 
Kentucky roads, Ulysses had earned no little money, 
much of which, — several hundred dollars, says one of 
his most conservative biographers, — he thriftily saved, 
for his one consuming desire as he reached his seven- 
teenth year was to be a " travelled man." 

No boy of his acquaintance had then seen as much 
of the world as Ulysses. He had even been as far as 
Louisville — a wonderful steamboat ride from Cincin- 
nati. He began to study geography, at least, with some 
show of interest. He was naturally quick at figures 
and mastered the rudiments of mathematics with con- 
summate ease. He believed even then in law and order 
as his Maysville teacher, Mr. Richardson, tells of two 
measures that were introduced in formal meeting of 
the school debating society by Ulysses Grant. They 
were as follows : 

" Resolved, That it be considered out of order for any 
member to speak on the opposite side to that to which he 
belongs. 

" Resolved, That any member who leaves his seat during 
debate shall be fined not less than six and a quarter cents." 

But while it was admitted that Ulysses could break, 
train, ride and drive horses to the admiration of every- 
body, there was one thing he would not and could not 
do, and that was strive to persuade a man to sell a horse 
for less than the horse's worth. In the eyes of Jesse, 
the money-maker, this oflfset his virtues, and the father 
never ceased to look upon the son as, from a purely 
business point of view, rather a hopeless proposition. 
There was once a colt Ulysses longed to own and had 

28 



BOYHOOD AND MOTHER 

not money to buy. This was when the boy was less than 
ten. The owner valued it at twenty-five dollars. The 
boy believed him fully worth it. The father long held 
out for twenty, but at last gave over the needed twenty- 
five with the parting injunction : " Offer him twenty 
dollars. If he won't take that, then make it twenty-two 
fifty, and if that won't do then let him have the twenty- 
five." Rejoicefully the youngster galloped away and 
literally did he obey his instructions. " I've come for 

the colt, Mr. ," said he. " Father says I'm to offer 

you twenty dollars, and if you won't take that, make it 
twenty-two fifty, and if that won't do, to give the whole 
twenty-five dollars." And, as the general whimsically 
says in his Memoirs, " It wouldn't take a Connecticut 
man to guess the price immediately agreed upon." 

But Ulysses got that colt and trained and rode him 
several years, and sold him for twenty dollars when no 
longer suited to his needs. Yet the Georgetown boys, 
envious of his horsemanship and eagerly and properly 
disdainful of his business methods, guyed him without 
mercy over that story, and so did his father. The boy 
might have an eye for a horse, was the verdict of Brown 
County, but he had no head for business. 

And Brown County was prophetic. Looking far 
into the future was it possible that Georgetown fore- 
saw the failure that was, in Wall Street, the sensation 
of the day — the peril of an honored name, the forfeit 
of a fortune, which in the autumn of his age well-nigh 
broke the stout heart of Ulysses Grant? 

It was soon after this episode in his boy life that 
Ulysses became a sufferer from chills and fever — the 
scourge that for a time had broken the health and 
checked the fortune of his father. Then it was 
that again and yet again the growing lad became 
as a child at his mother's knee, and thus it was that even 
in his sturdy, self-reliant boyhood, he was thrown so 
much upon the care and comforting that only a mother 

29 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

could give. Thus perhaps it came about that just at 
the time when most boys seem cutting loose from the 
maternal apronstring, the future hero of the fiercest 
war of modem times, all unconscious of the momentous 
change so speedily to come into his life, fell more and 
more under the sweet and soothing influences of that 
mother's love — influences that abode with him for all 
time. 



CHAPTER III 
A SOLDIER IN SPITE OF HIMSELF 

The summer of the seventeenth year of Grant's life 
had come. His sixteenth birthday had found him just 
finishing the winter term at a Maysville school, and 
once again he was busily engaged about the farm, when 
his father decided the hour at hand in which to deter- 
mine the boy's future vocation. Frankly, yet respect- 
fully, the lad had declared that if he must learn and 
labor at the trade of a tanner he would do so only 
until twenty-one. Then he would shift for himself. 
Already the " best travelled boy " in Georgetown, he 
still longed to see more of the world. 

By this time Jesse Grant was a man of mark and 
influence in the community. Possessed now of moder- 
ate means, he was bent on providing his children 
with the best education to be had, yet, true to his busi- 
ness instincts, sought to do so at the least cost to him- 
self. One wintry evening when the son was home from 
the last of the local schools he ever attended — a private 
afifair at Ripley — the father appeared with a long, 
ofificial-looking envelope in hand, and very briefly an- 
nounced the appointment of Ulysses to a cadetship at 
the National Military Academy at West Point. The 
rest is best told in Grant's own words, *' ' But I won't 
go,' said I. * I think you will,' said my father, and I 
thought so too if he did, and the matter was settled 
then and there." 

How it all came about is rather a curious story. 
The Hon. Thomas L. Hamer then represented that 
congressional district, and was entitled to name the lad 
who should fill the vacancy at West Point created by 
the recent failure of a Georgetown boy. That failure 

31 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

had stung to the quick the father of the luckless cadet 
in question, and the poor fellow had been sternly for- 
bidden to show his face at home. Everybody seems to 
have known it, and Ulysses had been thinking much 
of the sorrows of his former playmate, and how strange 
it was that one so capable in his school work at home 
should have made so complete a failure of it elsewhere. 
Ulysses did not know that more than half the " can- 
didates " who then entered West Point were unable to 
meet the requirements or stand the strain of the four 
long years of incessant study and discipline, and sooner 
or later fell by the wayside. 

But that the appointment should come from Mr. 
Hamer was a surprise to all Brown County. Hamer 
and Jesse Grant had differed widely on some political 
matters, and Jesse, as was ever his wont, had been 
venting his views in the public press and saying things 
as to Mr. Ilamer's sagacity and statesmanship that 
had greatly angered Mr. Ilamcr at the time, and the 
two men met as strangers when they met at all. 

So Grant had written to a senatorial friend — a man 
who liked the outspoken tanner, and whom Hamer 
liked and was glad to oblige. The senator wrote to 
Hamer and, time being short and mail communication 
slow, other business and no other candidates pressing, 
it resulted that Mr. Hamer at once sent to the Secretary 
of War what he believed to be the correct name of the 
son of his truculent fellow citizen. The Hiram part of 
it he had never heard. The Ulysses part of it was on 
many a tongue when last the congressman was at home, 
and all Brown and Qaremont Counties knew that the 
boy's mother was that gentle daughter of John Simp- 
son. The War Department asked no questions, but 
promptly filled the customarj' blank which formally 
notified one Ulysses Simpson Grant, of Georgetown, 
Brown Count)', Ohio, that the President had been 
pleased to designate him conditionally as a cadet at 

32 



A SOLDIER IN SPITE OF HIMSELF 

the U. S. Military Academy, where he would be 
pleased to report himself to the superintendent thereof 
on or about the ist of June for further examination. 
Then followed some printed instructions as to the phys- 
ical and mental qualifications — the latter then little 
more than the " reading, writing and 'rithmetic " he 
had been learning at odd intervals for several years. 
Before Ulysses was a day older he found himself 
booked, as it were, for a life career which was just 
about the last he would ever have chosen and for which 
he deemed himself in the least degree fitted. 

And yet it so happened that within ten years both 
the congressman and the cadet of his nomination were 
destined to meet as fellow soldiers in the field of arms, 
and to record each of the other high estimate of ability, 
energy and value. The one as a field officer of volun- 
teers, the other as a staff officer of regulars, met and 
joined hands in front of Monterey, It is pleasant, too, 
to record that when Mr. Hamer got home from Wash- 
ington in the summer of '39 his former critic and 
censor, Mr. Jesse Grant, lost no time in journeying to 
find him, and to thank him heartily for the appoint- 
ment given his boy, and these two men of mark thus 
buried their differences and shook hands over the 
clouded past. Henceforth they had an interest in 
common. 

But the object of that interest meanwhile had been 
by no means happy. Little as he desired to go to West 
Point, he less desired to return from there except 
victorious, with diploma and commission to crown his 
efforts, and now Ulysses was worrying over the pos- 
sibility of failure. If some convulsion of nature had 
toppled the entire Academy into the Hudson that spring 
of '39 he could have read the news with rejoicing. 
Indeed he himself records that, soon after his entrance 
upon duty, he watched with actual hope the progress 
of the move in congress to abolish West Point. If 
3 33 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Congress killed the Academy, he could then return 
blameless and scot free to resume the farm life and the 
horse training he delighted in. 

That spring of '39 he rode in to Cincinnati in quest 
of an algebra, thinking to learn a little of the first year's 
mathematical course. Arithmetic he knew by heart, 
but this strange new work, with its mystic symbols, 
proved, as he says, all Greek to him, and there was no 
one in Georgetown who could then explain its mysteries. 
It only served to add to his apprehensions. 

The time soon came when he must set forth on 
what was then a journey of a week or more. There 
was between him and that devoted mother much plan- 
ning and preparation over the modest stock of cloth- 
ing to be taken, and who knows what confidences, what 
admonition on the one side and promise on the other, 
passed between these two, who, loving each other so 
very much, spoke of it so very little. One letter writ- 
ten from West Point within a few months of his en- 
trance — one probably of many, for others are referred 
to — reveals unerringly the depth of the reverence in 
which he held his mother. Let that speak for itself. 

But the note of preparation was not without its 
humorous or whimsical side. When the old-fashioned 
hair trunk, lettered with brass-headed nails, was brought 
forth, and on either end was disclosed the legend 
H. U. G., the wise Ulysses promptly rebelled. Mindful 
of the deviling to which the village boys had subjected 
him over the colt purchase, and foreseeing the fun his 
future comrades would have over that alphabetical com- 
bination, he insisted on another trunk and a different 
legend. The trunk which entered West Point with 
" .New Cadet " Ulysses Simpson Grant was marked 
U. H. G., thus leading to further complications. 

The Grants were given to little show of emotion at 
any time. The parting with mother was not for other 
eyes. There were Georgetown girls and boys to " see 

34 



A SOLDIER IN SPITE OF HIMSELF 

him off," even after the cheery farewell to father and 
the sisters at the front gate. The girls of Georgetown 
had ever been his friends, because no one of their num- 
ber had ever known him to be guilty of a rude act or 
word, and now that he was going it began to be further 
remarked amongst the town folk, old and young, that 
that boy had never been guilty of a mean act or an un- 
truthful word. There was something to him, after all, 
besides a gift for training and trading horses. It was 
recalled that when a wandering phrenologist visited the 
village six years earlier, the elder Grant had insisted 
on the boy's bumps being interpreted, and what that 
phrenologist told Jesse — a believer in the new cult — 
astonished and delighted the elder as much as it dis- 
mayed the boy. " Whatever you do, don't tell it," 
Ulysses had begged, when he saw how seriously his 
father took it, but all in vain. Somehow it leaked out 
that those bumps indicated that the first-born son of 
Jesse should one day be President of the United States, 
and the fun Georgetown had at the expense of the 
Grants lasted many a year. Very possibly that gifted 
practitioner had prophesied the same thing of other 
boys at several other " stands " along his route ; in 
these cases, however, fond parents found no subsequent 
reason for mentioning the fact. 

But Jesse Grant was unprepared for the first indi- 
cations of a will of his own on part of the son. It 
seems that our Ulysses was bent on making the most of 
his first wanderings away from the home State. It was 
a three-days' run by river boat to Pittsburgh. It was 
a long, slow ride thence by canal packet to the base of 
the Alleghenies, and over their summits by wagon or 
stage. It was another long, slow ride down the eastern 
slopes and the winding Juniata. Then at Harrisburg, 
the State capital, the Buckeye boy bought his ticket to 
Philadelphia by the first railway train he had yet seen, 
and nearly a day was spent in trundling over the twist- 

35 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

ing road of iron at the astonishing speed of twelve or 
even fifteen miles an hour. Then Ulysses devoted an 
entire week to sight-seeing in Philadelphia. He had 
money of his own, his earnings and savings, and there 
were kinsfolk of the clan to visit. There was, more- 
over, abundant time, yet all this independence startled 
Jesse, the father, and brought from his ever ready pen 
a letter of rebuke, which, like many another letter re- 
ceived in after years, was read without resentment and 
pocketed without remark, left in fact to answer itself 
in course of time, as most letters will. 

And now, oddly enough, while the home folk were 
fretting not a little at the deliberation with which 
Ulysses moved on to his destination, there was some- 
thing of a show of impatience at the other end of the 
line — something that would have surprised no one more 
than Ulysses himself. West Point reception of all new- 
comers had sometimes exaggerated that of the colleges 
of all Christendom. In one and all the neophyte has 
had to learn that an immensity of distance lies between 
him and the honors and dignity of the upper classman. 
On this point there are none so insistent as the so- 
called sophomores in college or " yearlings " at the 
national schools. Having only just emerged from the 
meekness of their own year of probation, they turn 
with eager delight upon the " f reshies " of the new 
class, and in the vernacular of the campus " take it 
out " of their successors. 

West Point was and is no exception to the rule. It 
holds good everywhere in all trades and professions. 
Soldiers, sailors, students, school boys, miners, wood- 
men, " gangsters " generally, wherever the male animal 
is employed or engaged, sometimes even where two or 
three are gathered together in Sunday-school or theo- 
logical seminary, the newcomer is the butt of the jokes 
or pranks, more or less malicious, of the older " hands." 
It is even whispered that there are colleges where co- 

36 



A SOLDIER IN SPITE OF HIMSELF 

education is unknown, and only the softer sex admitted, 
where " hazing " is carried on as merrily or maliciously 
as ever it was at the Point. In Grant's day the practice 
had not risen to the proportions attained when his own 
first-born " reported," and in turn, with cheery and 
uncomplaining equanimity, took his share and more 
of the " levelling" process devised by his elders in the 
craft. When still again, in the third generation, the 
line of U. S. Grant was enrolled in the famous gray 
battalion, there were disciplinarian methods and re- 
finements of torment in practice never dreamed of in 
the days of Grant, the grandfather, the first Ulysses, 
for whose coming in June, '39, a swarm of mirthful 
spirits were eagerly watching. 

It was all due to those magic initials U. S. In his 
own Memoirs General Tecumseh Sherman — he who 
was destined a quarter century later to be the strong 
right arm, and stanchest, sturdiest friend Grant found 
in all the army — records that when the list of new cadets 
was posted along in the springtime, as was ever the 
custom, and the youngsters swarmed about the bulletin 
board to study the names and speculate as to the person- 
ality of the expected class, the liveliest comment was 
aroused by the name of the representative of the Fifth 
Congressional District of Ohio. It is safe to say that 
when a few weeks later the neophytes began to arrive, 
and shyly, sullenly or stoically, as temperaments de- 
termined, submitted to the ordeal of initiation, the 
centre of interest for several days was that rather 
bucolical-looking young fellow from the Buckeye State. 
Then it as surely settled elsewhere. From the moment 
of his arrival Grant was so hopelessly good natured, so 
cheery and serene, so unruffled even by taunt, sneer 
or sarcasm, that the few malignant spirits sought other 
victims, while the main body, the manly and self- 
respecting class that have ever made up the great ma- 
jority of the Corps of Cadets, soon took him into fellow- 

37 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

ship as one of the steady goers of the battalion, and left 
him to work out his own destiny in the most utterly 
democratic institution on the face of the globe. In 
this little community, no matter what may be the con- 
ditions as to birth, breeding, family connections or 
worldly goods, all who enter leave such behind, and at 
the outset agree to be bound by the same rigid rules 
as to dress, diet, deportment and duty, to eat, drink, 
sleep, study, drill and do as prescribed in the regulations. 
Thus starting on precisely the same plane, each for 
himself, as natural or acquired advantages, coupled 
with industry and energy, may best enable him, the 
cadet determines his own future standing in the records 
of the Academy. 

And so started and so for four long years steadily and 
serenely plodded the Ohio lad known to his comrades 
of the Corps as Sam Grant. Only in one way was he 
destined to become conspicuous in the Academy. Only 
to one earthly being did he communicate his hopes, 
fears or most intimate impressions. Removed by long 
miles from the sweet influences that had surrounded 
and guarded his boyhood, entered against his will upon 
a career distasteful to him, circumscribed by conditions 
that were often repugnant, and governed by a routine 
he considered harsh at most times and needless in most 
cases, he passed through plebe camp in silent submis- 
sion, and settled down to his first year's studies in the 
bare old barracks, with neither hope of nor desire for 
reward in the profession prescribed for him; with 
neither enthusiasm nor even respect for the soldier part 
of his work ; with nothing but a sense of duty and a 
never-surrender spirit to direct his efforts. To this 
was added the filial obedience he owed his father and 
the devotion with which he regarded his mother, for 
here is what in 1839 he wrote to her: 

" I seem alone in the world without my mother . . , 
You cannot tell how much I miss you. I was so often alone 

38 



A SOLDIER IN SPITE OF HIMSELF 

with you and you so frequently spoke to me in private that 
the solitude of my situation here at the Academy among my 
silent books and in my lonely room is all the more striking. 
It reminds me all the more forcibly of home, and most of all, 
dear mother, of you. Your kindly instructions and ad- 
monitions are ever present with me. How often do I think 
of them and how well they strengthen me in every good word 
or work." 



CHAPTER IV 
CADET LIFE AND COMRADES 

In those days the age limit for admission to the 
Academy was from sixteen to twenty, and of the num- 
ber sent thither for prehminary examination in June, 
'39, just seventy-six were duly enrolled as new cadets. 
Thirteen of their number were named by the President 
himself, sons of prominent officials or personal or 
political friends. A dozen hailed from New York; 
nearly as many from Pennsylvania; three from Vir- 
ginia; four only from Ohio; the others "scattering." 
Of these seventy-six only about one-half were destined 
to answer to the final roll-call of the class when sum- 
moned four years later to receive the prized diploma. 

Nor was it a class remarkable either for scholarship 
or soldiership. No one of their number was graduated 
directly into the most scientific Corps of the Army, the 
Engineers. William B. Franklin, who eventually 
ended at the head in general standing, was gazetted to 
the " Topogs " — a secondary branch of the Engineers, 
which many years later was merged with that Corps 
by act of Congress. The next man, George Deshon, of 
Connecticut, was assigned to the Ordnance, but ere long 
quit the army for the priesthood, and lived and died 
in holy orders. For a time he and Grant were room- 
mates, they were ever friends, the one already dream- 
ing of the mitre and vestments of the Church of Rome, 
the other an unobtrusive follower of his mother's creed 
— that of the most earnest Methodism. Next in rank 
came Brereton and Grelaud, assigned respectively to 
the Ordnance and the Artillery. William F. Raynolds, 
hailing like Grant from Ohio, was graduated fifth and 
was at first assigned to the Infantry arm, but was able 

40 



CADET LIFE AND COMRADES 

as early as the 20th of July to effect a transfer to the 
Topographical Corps. Sixth in order of graduation 
and assigned to the Artillery, was Quimby of New- 
Jersey — the finest mathematician of the class. Excel- 
lence in mathematics was not infrequently counter- 
balanced by inaptitude in languages. Excellence in 
languages is rarely accompanied by like ability in 
" math." Yet Quimby was to become in Grant's eyes 
the most enviable man of all their number when, in 
1852, he resigned from the army to take a profes- 
sorship of mathematics. Of the members of this class 
of 1843, Franklin, Peck, J. J. Reynolds, Augur, C. S. 
Hamilton and Fred Steele rose with Grant to the grade 
of major-general in the command of volunteers during 
the great war of the nation. Ingalls became famous as 
chief quartermaster of the armies in Virginia, Clarke as 
a chief commissary, Reynolds and Hardie in the staff, 
and Potter, Dent and Judah won their stars as 
brigadiers. 

Two of their brave young band, Chadbourne and 
Hazlitt, met their soldier fate when mere boys, killed 
in the earliest battles of the Mexican War, while 
George Stevens, of the Dragoons, after valiant deeds 
at Palo Alto and Resaca, was drowned in attempting 
the passage of the Rio Grande. Two, Northern born, 
for some strange reason forgot their duty and their 
flag, and tendered their swords in '61 to the States 
arrayed against the Union. Two fell by the wayside 
and left the service by sentence of court-martial. To 
one and to one alone it was vouchsafed, after most gal- 
lant and conspicuous services in battle while only a 
beardless subaltern, after trials, vicissitudes and humilia- 
tions that might well have crushed a stouter heart, to 
take up arms against a sea of troubles, to triumph over 
every adverse influence, to rise to the command in 
chief of the greatest army of modern times, and then, 
acclaimed by the entire nation, to the highest honors 

41 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

and rewards ever accorded by the people of the United 
States, and all this through the profession of all others 
he would never have willingly chosen — the cheery, 
modest, but most determined lad, Mr. Hamer's ap- 
pointee from Georgetown, Ohio. West Point indeed 
had verified the confident prediction of Jesse Grant. It 
had developed the latent something that the father de- 
clared was slumbering in the son. 

But life at the Military Academy in the old days had 
little of the life one now can see there any sunshiny day. 
Railways and steam ferries were only just beginning to 
be heard of in the beautiful Highlands of the Hudson. 
Perched on its rocky promontory, compassed about by 
its mighty barriers of wooded heights, swept by the 
swift tides of the noble river, the little military bailiwick 
in the heart of the Empire State was as isolated as 
though it had been walled in and the public barred out. 
Visitors to the Academy, who came often in the sum- 
mer time, were landed at the old north dock from the 
dayboat plying 'twixt New York and the bustling river 
towns. 

Even in the forties it took the better part of a long 
summer day to reach the Academy from any one of 
the river towns above and below, and as for the two 
hundred and fifty young soldiers in cadet gray, selected 
from all over the Union and secluded there to be trained 
for its military service, only once in two years, except 
in rare individual cases, did they set foot beyond its 
borders. They took no part in presidential inaugurations 
(the first time they ever appeared at Washington was 
when one of their number who entered in '39, hoping 
to learn enough to become a teacher of mathematics, 
was being escorted to the capitol to take oath as Chief 
Magistrate of the Union he had been largely instru- 
mental in saving). They had no annual outing for the 
great game on Franklin Field, for Annapolis was only 
just evolving from a dream of George Bancroft. They 

42 



CADET LIFE AND COMRADES 

had no base-ball, foot-ball, basket-ball teams, no gym- 
nasium worth the name. They had had some rings and 
bars or wooden " horses " in the ground floor of the 
old Academic building, but just the year before Grant 
and his fellows were started on their slow race, these 
impedimenta were dragged out, the floor was carpeted 
with tan bark, and presently equine and ammoniac 
aromas ascended to the recitation rooms above. Riding 
at last had been added to the curriculum. A sergeant 
of dragoons and half a dozen troopers had been brought 
over from the cavalry station at Carlisle Barracks, 
Pennsylvania, together with a small collection of quad- 
rupeds — animals whose pedigree and proficiency as 
saddlers, however, had not been subject to examina- 
tion. A sorrier lot of riding-school mounts could hardly 
be found on the face of the globe, but they were merrily 
welcomed. Bad as they looked and were, they supplied 
a long-felt want and about the only lawful diversion 
known to the Corps of Cadets. 

Just how young men could live through the dull, 
dreary monotony of the five wintry months of each of 
those academic years it is difficult now to see. Aroused 
at daybreak by the thunder of the reveille drums, 
hustled out to roll-call, then back to their bare and 
cheerless rooms, to sweep out for inspection and sit 
shivering through an enforced study period of an hour 
or two before breakfast, marched to meals three times a 
day (about the only out-of-door exercise they had from 
October to April), penned up in quarters when not at 
recitation or drawing, permitted no healthful sport 
of any kind except on a Saturday afternoon, and then 
provided with the means for none, the marvel is that 
more numerously they did not break down in health 
or break over the rules. Grant says he took to tobacco 
principally because it was forbidden. The lessons were 
long and hard, but study hours were longer and if any- 
thing harder, for nothing but study was prescribed. 

43 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

The forcing house system, according to the theory of 
the day, would achieve the best results, and so far as 
rule and regulation could make it, cadet life, nearly 
nine months of each year, was well high monastic. 

As a natural result the lads overleaped at times the 
barriers and set forth in search of adventure. These 
were the halcyon days of dear old Benny Havens, 
whose bones are now mouldering in the hillside grave- 
yard a little below " the L^alls," but whose soul goes 
marching on through song, story and tradition, and 
whose fame will live long as that of the brainiest of 
many of his patrons. To skip to Benny's of a cold 
December night, when the officer in charge had " doused 
his glim," and the stars were gleaming on the glisten- 
ing breastplate of the Hudson, was a matter of but 
twenty minutes. Skates in hand, the daring fellows 
would tiptoe out of barracks, scramble down the cliff 
at Kosciuszko's Garden, don their steels on the icy 
Hats beneath, and then go skimming away down stream 
to where, just below the foaming little cataract, a big, 
roomy, stout-built, wooden-shuttered, two-story house 
stood on a rocky ledge at the water's brink — all dark- 
ness without, all gleam and glow, warmth and welcome 
within. Oh, what nights of song and wassail, of cheer 
and laughter, of feast and fun, enlivened the dull, dead 
monotony of those dark and dreary months! What 
hours of mirth and merriment were these wrung from 
the bleak chronicles of barrack life ! Oh, that with all the 
reminiscences ever written — Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, 
Scofield, Keyes, Howard, Hamilton, Strong, Boynton, 
and fondest of them all, by Morris Schaff, in whom 
" the Spirit of old West Point " lives sweet and incar- 
nate — there might have been those of him we hailed 
long years as patron saint — genial, fatherly, blessed and 
benevolent old Benny Havens! His stories could have 
outranked them all as his song runs on forever. 

But before the academic year of study had its 
44 



CADET LIFE AND COMRADES 

opening in September, there were some ten weeks of 
strictly soldier work in camp, to the newcomers the 
harshest and sternest of their career. Those were the 
weeks in which the raw, untutored lads from field, farm 
and village, had to be transfonned as speedily as pos- 
sible into the smartest, snappiest, most precise of 
soldiers, spick and span in dress, spotless in arms and 
equipment. These were the days of the " ramrod " 
tactics of Winfield Scott — the starch and stock and 
buckram days of the army. " Old Fuss and Feathers " 
his detractors called him, but with all his pomps and 
vanities a splendid soldier was Scott, a model either 
on the drill ground or in deadly battle. Ten years had 
rolled away since the relief of Major Worth as com- 
mandant, the idol of the Corps of Cadets, the ideal 
drill-master of the army, but the methods and manner- 
isms of that most soldierly of instructors were still fol- 
lowed, the snap and style of his drill (pronounced by 
Prof. Church, who had seen every commandant from 
Worth in 1822, to good old " Beau " Neill in 1878, " the 
most electric of them all ") still lived in the cadet bat- 
talion, and our farm-bred Ulysses had the time of his 
life trying to " fall in " with it. There was probably 
no man in his class to whom it came harder. 

Phlegmatic in temperament and long given to ease 
and deliberation in all his movements at home, this 
springing to attention at the tap of the drum, this 
snapping together of the heels at the sound of a 
sergeant's voice, this sudden freezing to a rigid pose 
without the move of a muscle, except at the word of 
command, was something almost beyond him. It seemed 
utterly unnatural, if not utterly repugnant. Ac- 
customed to swinging along the winding banks of the 
White Oak, or the cow paths of the pasture lot, this 
moving only at a measured pace of twenty-eight inches, 
and one hundred and ten to the minute, and all in strict 
unison with the step of the guide on the marching flank 

45 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

or at the head of column, came ten times harder than 
ever did the pages of " analytical " or the calculus. 
Grant had no sense of rhythm. He had no joy in martial 
music. The thrill and inspiration of the drum and 
fife, or the beautiful harmonies of the old Academy 
band, then a famous organization, were utterly lost on 
Ulysses Grant. In all that class of 1843, it may well 
be doubted if there lived one solitary soul who found 
there less to like or more to shrink from than this 
seventeen-year-old lad who, thanks to the opportunities 
and to the training there given them, was in less than a 
quarter of a century to be hailed as the foremost soldier 
of more than two millions of men in the Union blue. 

All the same he had silently donned the queer little 
bob-tailed, bell-buttoned " coatee " of the fashion of 
181 2, the skin-tight trousers of white drilling, the 
" uniform " shoes of the pattern worn by the rank and 
file of the army, but luckily made to measure. It wasn't 
hard to button that gray straight jacket alxDUt his 
slender waist — he was one of the slimmest of the Corps 
— but the high black stock at the throat was a nuisance, 
and the little tuni-ovcr white collar, pinned to the inner 
side of that rigid necklet of gray, a source of endless 
bother and demerit. A crease, a wrinkle or a blotch 
would bring the heartless report of " Grant — collar 
soiled at morning parade," and reports of this char- 
acter, it must be owned, rained thick and fast upon 
his record. " Belts twisted," " Gloves torn," " Shoes- 
not polished," " Brasses tarnished," " Not keeping 
dressed marching to dinner " (which did not imply that 
he was losing some of his apparel: It was simply the 
West Point way of saying that for a second or two he 
was out of line), and above all, "Losing step" were 
" skins " that are samples of those which even to the 
last year of the four kept the future head of the nation 
far, very far, from the head of his class. 

And yet even that cadet " plebe " camp was not 
46 



CADET LIFE AND COMRADES 

utterly unhappy ; and yet the long winter of work that 
followed had its hours of hope and encouragement. 
The drills developed healthy appetite that made even 
the dubious fare of the cadet mess hall, as in those days 
provided, nutritious and welcome. The hard day's 
work, followed by a swim in the Hudson, promoted 
sound sleep and digestion. The ordeal of camp was 
over at last. The snowy tents were struck at the tap 
of the drum. The jaunty battalion, with colors flying 
and heads held high, marched blithely away to winter 
quarters, and two days thereafter the lessons of the long 
academic course were begun. 

Then it was that Grant made a discovery which gave 
him surprise and gratification. Out of place as he had 
felt in the serried ranks, striving awkwardly at times 
to keep step with some frolicsome file leader who de- 
lighted in tripping him, he found himself at ease and 
almost at home in the mathematical section room. 

Mention has been made of his purchase of an 
algebra in the spring of the year, and his finding it all 
Greek. Now in the fall of '39 he stepped into the 
presence of an instructor who made its complicated 
pages luminous with meaning. Now the curt, sharp, 
stinging comments of the cadet officers gave place to 
clear and kindly explanation of every doubtful para- 
graph. Now he found himself listening absorbed to 
the teachings of a master who was the monarch of his 
art, and in less than a week that which had seemed 
burdened with mystery unfolded itself to his receptive 
mind, under the guidance of the clearest demonstrator 
he or West Point had ever known — the little man with 
the head of an intellectual giant and the heart of gold — 
Albert E. Church, for nearly half a century the unchal- 
lenged chief of the Department of Mathematics. 

And Church was but one of a little coterie of great 
teachers, all of them then young, vigorous and full of 
enthusiasm in their work. From the thirties to the 

47 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

seventies, forty long years, every graduate of the 
Academy was made and molded by these men. They 
more than deserve the tribute of fervent gratitude and 
affection that many a pupil would gladly pen, did he 
believe he could do even faint justice to the subject. It 
was the writer's privilege to stand almost " in the 
presence," the day on which the general-in-chief of all 
the armies once again appeared within the academic 
halls, and with full heart and eager hands, shyly, almost 
faltering made his reverence to the men who it might 
almost be declared had made him. Beyond all ques- 
tion they had shaped and molded the fine and flawless 
clay that came to them in Ulysses Grant. 



CHAPTER V 

WEST POINT AND ITS PROFESSORS 

From its infancy until the summer of 1866 the Mili- 
tary Academy remained under the guidance of the 
Corps of Engineers. From the days of Jonathan 
Williams to and including the administration of George 
W. CuUum, only officers of the Corps of Engineers 
were its superintendents, and from 1818, until July 
30th, 1866, only the chief of the Corps of Engineers 
served as its inspector, Joseph G. Swift, its first gradu- 
ate, was its first inspector. Sylvanus Thayer, who 
longer than any other served as superintendent, never 
rose to the head of the Corps, but the graduates of his 
quarter century administration would never admit that 
he had an equal. Joseph G. Totten, its inspector from 
the year before Grant's admission, 1838, until the year 
in which Grant became general-in-chief, 1864, never 
served as superintendent, yet had studied the Academy 
from " turret to foundation stone." Richard Delafield, 
who succeeded him as inspector, had twice served as 
superintendent. In January, 1861, when most of the 
Southern States had severed, as they thought, the ties 
that bound them to the Union, and war was imminent, 
it pleased Mr. Secretary Floyd to send Major P, G. T. 
Beauregard to the Point, with orders to assume com- 
mand and relieve Colonel Delafield. That closed the 
career of Floyd, who was himself promptly relieved by 
Joseph Holt, and the obnoxious order as promptly re- 
voked. Finally, last of the Engineer superintendents 
in the direct and unbroken line, there came to the Point 
in 1864, one of its most devoted and distinguished 
graduates in the person of George W. Cullum of the 
Class of 1833. It is only to be regretted that the selec- 
tion had not been made years earlier, and that it could 
4 49 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

not have held years longer. No man in or out of the 
Corps of Engineers better knew the Academy, better 
served it, loved it, than did General Cullum. 

As given, not in the order of their establishment, 
but in the records of the days whereof we write, the 
Academy consisted of the Departments of Tactics, of 
Civil and Military Engineering, of Natural and Ex- 
perimental Philosophy, of Mathematics, of Drawing, 
of Chemistry and Mineralogy, of Ordnance and Gun- 
nery, of Geography, History and Ethics, and finally of 
French. The Department of Tactics was purely mili- 
tary and its head was the Commandant of Cadets, 
whose term of office rarely exceeded four years. The 
others were as entirely academic, and, with the ex- 
ception of ordnance, were headed and controlled by 
men chosen by the Corps of Engineers and for what 
were then considered life positions The utmost care 
had ever been taken in the selection, with the result that, 
in 1839 when Grant and his classmates entered upon 
their career, the three great departments — Engineering, 
Philosophy, and Mathematics — were presided over by 
men who stood unsurpassed in their line and unchal- 
lenged in their high estate until, bowed with the weight 
of years, they successively retired. One and all they 
were there to greet their former pupil when at the 
close of the great war, as commanding general, he once 
more stood before them. 

" Dean of the Faculty " was Dennis H. Mahan, Pro- 
fessor of Engineering. Next to him stood W. H. C. 
Bartlett, Professor of Natural and Experimental 
Philosophy. Third on the list was Alfred E. Church, 
Professor of Mathematics. Each in turn had been 
graduated at the head of his class. Each in his earliest 
days of service had been assigned as instructor in the 
scientific branches of the curriculum. Each had proved 
his mettle and been chosen for further advancement. 
It is no disparagement of their successors, or of their 

so 



WEST POINT AND ITS PROFESSORS 

associates, to say that for thirty years this immortal 
trio stood paramount at West Point and gave the tone 
that made it famous. Strong and virile chiefs were 
they, spurring the laggards, cheering the ambitious, hew- 
ing ever close to the line and standing shoulder to 
shoulder against every attempt to lower the standard. 
Stem in their creed they may have been, but unerring 
in their practice. To their hands the nation had com- 
mitted its chosen to be schooled for its defense and 
fitted for the profession that demands of its votaries 
the supreme measure of self-sacrifice and devotion. 
Men of gentler mold, but of enthusiasm like unto their 
own, were at the head of other departments, notably 
Baily in Chemistry, and later the courtly and genial 
soldier who had so long been his first assistant, Henry 
L. Kendrick, — both well worthy to sit in council with 
the immortal three. 

In the Department of Drawing, where to his own 
surprise Grant was destined to do some very creditable 
work, the artists of America were represented by Prof. 
Robert W. Weir. The Department of French, wherein 
Grant found himself utterly at sea, was conducted by 
Prof. Claudius Berard. Gentlemen of the old school 
were these, but being chosen from civil life, they 
wisely left all matters of academic or military dis- 
cipline to their more martial associates. The matter of 
military discipline, pur et simple, was vested in the head 
of the Department of Tactics and in the person of the 
Commandant of Cadets. This office was filled in 
Grant's day by Colonel Charles F. Smith, whom Grant 
declared his ideal of the officer and the gentleman. A 
more knightly, courteous and soldierly man never wore 
the uniform of the United States. For three of his 
four cadet years Grant lived under the constant super- 
vision of this most distinguished officer and looked up 
to him as he did to no other. When in 1842 and the 
close of First Class Camp, Colonel Smith finally gave 

51 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

way to another, Grant and his classmates thought never 
to look upon his like again, and in less than five years 
it was Grant's lot to share with Smith the honors and 
plaudits of their chiefs and comrades in one of the 
fiercest assaults before the walls of Mexico. In less 
than twenty years, strangest of all, it was Grant's lot to 
be issuing orders in front of Donelson to his right hand 
man, his best and noblest division commander, his most 
loyal subordinate in that first fierce campaign — the com- 
mandant of his admiration in his cadet days at the Point. 
It reads like romance. 

For the first two years of this academic career, from 
September ist to June, and for six days out of every 
seven, the young West Pointer of the ante bcllum period 
was reasonably sure of coming under the eyes of Prof. 
Church, and that mathematical course is the basis of 
West Point's educational system. At the beginning of 
the third year of his bondage, as Grant regarded it, 
Prof. Bartlctt took up the reins where, at the close 
of the Calculus, they had been dropped by Church, 
and for nine months longer the pupil was driven at 
steady, unswerving gait through the intricacies of 
Mechanics and the later glories of Astronomy. In the 
fourth or final period, he fell under the daily comment 
and criticism of the Professor of Engineering, whose 
duty it was to impart the finishing touches. Keen, in- 
cisive, often satirical, sometimes sarcastic, his daily 
rasping stung the mental skin to vehement action — a 
recitation in Engineering or Strategy in that awe- 
some presence was an intellectual needle bath of ice 
water, swift followed by swifter rub with a steel wire 
towel. The cadet who came before Mahan with merely 
a superficial knowledge of the subject inevitably found 
himself in pitiable plight. There never was a quicker 
eye or sharper tongue for shams of any kind. Un- 
erringly and almost instantly he could discover just 
how much a pupil knew on any one point, and then if 

52 




MAJOR-GENERAL CHARLES F. SMITH 
Grant's hero to the end 



WEST POINT AND ITS PROFESSORS 

that pupil were not humility personified it was rich to 
hear Mahan dissect him. No cadet from the head of 
the class down to the foot was safe from his sarcasm 
or proof against his prodding. They feared even as they 
admired him. They gloried in his teachings as one does 
in a desperate battle — after it is over. There was just 
one quality in a pupil which he apostrophized again and 
again as indispensable to the would-be commander of 
fighting men. Without it brilliancy, knowledge, book 
learning, study, strategy and tactics, all combined, were 
of little worth. *' Common sense," said Mahan, was 
worth them all, and was the one quality without which 
no man could hope to win. This he held to as a theory 
prior to the great war of the sixties ; this he triumphantly 
declared, as a result of observation of all its leaders, a 
proved and petrified fact ; and this he emphasized in 
his lecture room in May, 1866, to the very last class 
graduated under the auspices of the Corps of Engineers. 
As the crowning example of his theory he pointed to 
the career and record of the man who away back in '43 
had impressed the master above all his mates, the shy, 
unobtrusive, somewhat unsoldicrly youth whom we have 
seen entering in 1839, Mr. Ilamer's unwilling candidate 
from the P.uckeyc State. 

Here is what the great teacher said late in the sixties 
of his modest pupil of the early forties: 

Grant is remembered at his alma mater as having a 
clicery and at the same time firm aspect, and a prompt, decided 
manner. His class standing was among that grade which has 
Kiven to the line of the Army some of its most valuable officers, 
like Lyon, Reynolds. Sedgwick, etc ... He was what we 
termed a first section man in all his scientific studies ; that is, 
one who accomplishes the full course. He always showed him- 
self a thinker and a steady worker. He belonged to the class 
of compactly strong men who went at their task at once and 
kept at it until they had finished. His mental machine was 
of the powerful, low pressure class, which condenses its own 
steam and consumes its own smoke, and which pushes steadily 
forward and drives all obstacles before it. 

53 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GR.\NT 

But all this came as the result or end of the four 
years of training. We have still to speak of the means. 

There were other famous teachers at the Academy 
in Grant's day, men who helped to shape his course in 
life, and some of them, later, to be closely and intimately 
associated with it. Chief of these was William W. S. 
Bliss of the Class of '33 and of the Fourth U. S. 
Infantry, assistant in the Department of Mathematics, 
he whose charm of manner and whose gifts and graces 
were such that he had won from his own classmates 
the pet name of " Perfect." When it is remembered 
that then and ever after, cadet nicknames were bestowed 
rather for some salient physical peculiarity, or in com- 
memoration of some luckless and ludicrous slip, it is 
indicative of the extreme of cadet regard in the case of 
Bliss. The same gifts attached to him as instructor in 
mathematics, and later still as the brilliant and ad- 
mired aide-de-camp of Zachary Taylor — the same gifts 
had so impressed his pupil in 1840, and his regimental 
comrades in the Mexican war, that the news of his 
lamented death, in 1854. brought grief and mouming to 
the man of all others to whom that death brought tem- 
porary benefit. Promoted captain Fourth Infantry, 
vice Bliss, deceased, Ulysses Grant stepped in 1853 
from the quartemiastership of the regiment, a position 
which he had occupied much of the time since the 
Mexican war, into the captaincy long held by Bliss, 
and with it into the control of adverse fate and in- 
fluences. That upward step led him within the twelve- 
month down and out of the regiment in which he was 
held in honor and affection, and which, in spite of his 
dislike of the militar)' service, he had yet learned to love. 
There were days of bitter sorrow and humiliation in 
store for him whose cheery manner and round, boyish 
face, as says Mahan, gave little evidence of the strength 
and purpose stored up in his character. Possibly in the 
Divine pity and the prescience which " shapes our ends " 

54 



WEST POINT AND ITS PROFESSORS 

it was deemed essential to the fruition of the future 
that for the time being the wanderings of Ulysses 
should lead him to the desert places, through penury 
and privation, through slight and sufferance, through 
the valley of the shadow that, having explored the 
depths he should the more vehemently strike against 
their more deadly miasma, that he should presently 
reappear, crowned with strength and energy, and then 
sweep onward with vision undimmed and purpose un- 
daunted to the crowning triumph of an utterly un- 
matched career. 

One may well be warranted in believing that there 
was ever present with Grant the guidance of these 
great teachers of his boy days, that in the hours of his 
humiliation and neglect the spirit of the young soldier 
who won such fame at Monterey, at Molino and 
Chapultepec, and yet so soon found it forgotten and 
outweighed, was sustained by the spirit of his admired 
predecessor, teacher and regimental comrade, " Per- 
fect " Bliss. Be that as it may, through all the trials 
that were to come, this much is known from his own 
Memoirs and from the admiring testimony of old 
comrades who were occasionally thrown with him — he 
never lost his faith, or grit, or hope, and even for those 
who had most harshly judged, most despitefully used 
him, he never lost his own sense of justice, he never 
failed to exercise his charity. Whether he knew it or 
not, there stood ever by him " The Spirit of Old West 
Point." 

For even in his cadet days there had come to him 
an odd presentiment or vision. For many a long year, 
remembering possibly the fun and raillery at home over 
his father's hapless boast concerning the phrenologist's 
prediction. Grant kept this to himself, but in his 
Memoirs he admits that the sight of the magnificent 
Winfield Scott, full panoplied and in the dazzling 
uniform of the earlier days, receiving on review the 

55 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

salute of the rigid gray and white line, awoke in him. 
a strange conviction that some day it should come to 
him, too, to stand in Scott's stead on that beautiful 
parade ground, to hear the cannon thunder and the 
glistening line crash to the " present," to see the sword 
blades gleaming and the silken colors drooping, all in 
his honor. 

But enough of sentiment and dreaming. It is time 
to take up the practical, every day, humdrum of cadet 
life as Ulysses found it. To tell of that and possibly 
of a certain few besides, his classmates, whose associa- 
tion in those early days led to momentous consequences 
in days to come, and then to lead him to the longed-for 
hour of which his comrades used to sing, and he to 
smile in sympathy, for sing he could not : 

Hurrah, hurrah, for the merry bright month of June 

Tliat opens a life so new. 
When we doff tlie cadet and don tlie brevet 

And change the gray for the blue. 



CHAPTER VI 
WEST POINT AND ITS CURRICULUM 

The first year's course at the Military Academy in 
the days of Grant was confined mainly to recitations in 
mathematics, in French and in what were termed Eng- 
lish studies. The lessons were long, but abundant time 
was given in which to learn them, and every reasonable 
precaution was taken to insure the purpose of the study 
hours. Inspections of quarters were frequent during 
the day and sentries twixt seven and ten at night paced 
the corridors and barracks, and occasionally peered into 
the rooms to satisfy themselves and inquisitive officers 
that everything on their posts was "All right, sir." 
This was a comprehensive formula. It meant that 
every cadet in that corridor was in his own room and 
presumably engaged in his allotted task, that no smok- 
ing, skylarking or surreptitious enterprise of any kind 
was going on. At 9.30 p.m. the dnmis and fifes came 
thundering " tattoo " among the resounding walls, and 
then, and not till then, the cadet was free to make 
down his bed and turn in for the night. At ten p.m. 
there came three sharp staccato drum taps, at which 
summons the cadet inspectors of subdivisions made 
swift circuit of the rooms to see to it that every man was 
in and every light was out. 

But cadet sentries were not required to see to it 
that the book in use was Davies' Bourdon or Church's 
Analytical. The library of the Academy was even then 
well stocked with standard fiction. Cadets were given 
daily access to its shelves during the brief release from 
quarters between four p.m. and the sunset gun. One 
book a week might be taken out by any cadet so minded, 
and it presently resulted that the reading habits of the 

57 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

father had in Grant's case, become fixed in the son. It 
was the one relaxation of that gloomy year of his 
" plebedom." 

Finding after the first few weeks, under Prof. 
Church and " Perfect " Bliss, that algebra presented no 
difficulties, Grant proceeded to take things easily. 
The routine, the roll-calls, the ramrod precision 
in ever}-- detail, the incessant facings and march- 
ings bored and wearied him. The studies at the start 
failed to arouse his energies. He had time, now that 
camp and its hourly drills were over, to refiect on his 
surroundings and his prospects. The more he saw of 
the former the less he liked them ; the more he could 
hear of the latter the less they appealed to him. 

But in boy days about Georgetown he had learned at 
his mother's knee the old. old admonition as to him who 
" having put his hand to the plough," there was to be 
neither look nor footstep backward. The die had been 
cast. For weal or for woe he had signed with Uncle 
Sam, and he was made of stuff too stern to think of 
falter now. Very modestly, long years later, he had 
disclaimed, as has been said, any right to membership 
among the descendants of the vehement old Clan Grant, 
yet, subconsciously, perhaps, and in his own simple, 
matter-of-fact way, the young cadet was living up to its 
spirited motto, *' Stand fast — stand sure." He had 
entered for the contest, and though he cared nothing for 
the prize, he meant to fight on to the end. That trait 
proved rather a valuable asset to the nation in the by 
and by. We read of it at intervals in the sixties. 

Meantime, to make plebe life bearable, he look to 
reading. The standard novelists of the day were Scott 
and Bulwer. The sea tales of Marryat and Cooper 
were fascinating. The unwritten laws of the Corps of 
Cadets left the Fourth classmen entirely to themselves 
throughout the barrack days of the initial year — the 
object being to level the array, to develop class feeling, 

58 



WEST POINT AND ITS CURRICULUM 

and to teach them thoroughly to know one another. 
Outside of the few in his own corridor or section, Grant 
mingled very Httle, even among his own classmates. 
Kindly and good natured, he was nevertheless looked 
upon at the start as a trifle shy and unresponsive. They 
let him alone, and in his possible loneliness the authors 
whom he read so carefully became his friends and 
familiars. 

And so it happened that after the January examina- 
tions and the closing of algebra, with Grant standing 
easily in the highest section, and the taking up of geom- 
etry and French, he had acquired the habit of only 
reading once through the lesson of the day, and of 
giving hours to the pages of romance. Moreover, he was 
writing much that winter to home and mother. There 
was rude awakening to come with the new term. Geom- 
etry was less clear to him than were the intricacies 
of algebra. " Shades, shadows and perspective " were 
a bagatelle, but " descriptive " proved a stumbling 
block, though there was not then enough of it to greatly 
lower his standing. The foe that threatened his defeat 
was the French language. 

From start to finish Grant could never master nor 
abide that tongue — the language of courts and diplo- 
macy, the language of all others that Talleyrand must 
have had in mind when he declared its main purpose 
was to conceal thought. Holding his own in mathe- 
matics during the second half. Grant found himself 
going down section by section in French, until there was 
danger of his dropping out entirely, and yet it seemed 
to give him no concern. 

A furious debate was raging that winter in Con- 
gress. A quarter century had passed without a war, 
excepting the deadly encounters with our Indian wards, 
which always cost the army heavily. The very argu- 
ments we hear to-day and heard so very often in the 
fifties were being urged against all expenditure for 

59 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

military purposes, and it was seriously proposed to 
abolish West Point as a costly and unnecessary burden, 
even as a menace to the interests of the people. The 
friends of the Academy took alann, and one cadet, at 
least, took comfort. So probable seemed the success 
of the movement that he had become almost indifferent 
to the weekly marks. He was too young at the time to 
realize that in all such anti-military demonstrations one 
hears mainly the orators of the antis. The wiser heads 
are silent until it comes to a vote. When the opposition 
finally ended and Grant found that the Fates were with 
West Point, and though he knew it not, with him, he 
was disturbed to see how far he had dropped in French, 
and how his marks even in mathematics had suffered. 
Moreover, by that time the spring was well advanced 
and there was left too short a while in which to recover 
the lost standing. In French he could not regain his 
ground, even with the encouragement of kindly old 
Claudius Beranl. This accounts for his low grade in 
the Fourth class year. 

Another matter that worried him awhile : he found 
himself registered as Ulysses Simpson Grant, and 
sought through proper military channels to have it 
changed to the Hiram Ulysses of his birth. But the 
initials given him by Mr. Hamer appealed to the au- 
thorities of Uncle Sam at Washington, and Sam Grant 
he was destined to remain. 

In June the class of '43 was advanced to the dignity 
of " yearlings," and the delight of welcoming the new- 
comers — perhaps the most thrilling epoch of cadet life — 
and then another trait became noticeable in Grant: 
he would take no part in any " hazing " that inflicted 
humiliation or pain. He worried through the summer 
camp of 1840 with no more enthusiasm, but with all the 
serenity, displayed in that of '39. He welcomed the re- 
turn to barracks and the studies of that second year, 
even though French continued a bugbear, because he 

60 



WEST POINT AND ITS CURRICULUM 

shone in the section room through analytical geometry 
and calculus, standing in the highest grade, and finish- 
ing tenth in rank. Drawing, too, proved attractive. 

Standing only " one file from foot " in French, at 
the end of the plebe year, he had climbed to forty- 
fourth place in that study in a class numbering fifty- 
three, at the end of the second. Mathematics and draw- 
ing were far easier to him, and therein he stood far 
higher. But then there was the Conduct Roll. From 
first to last there never was a time when " demerit " — 
the black marks given for every violation of the regu- 
lations, great or small — did not throw him back into 
the lower fourth of his class. Just what made up the 
bulk of the reports at his expense it is easy to conjec- 
ture. He never could be " military " as it was termed, 
and yet, in spite of all his distaste for soldiership, he had 
found a friend and believer in the soldier of all others 
whom he most admired — their model commandant and 
head of the Department of Tactics, Colonel Charles F. 
Smith. 

For purposes of instruction the Corps was then 
divided into four companies of about sixty each, mak- 
ing a compact little battalion which, including the cadet 
officers, was about two hundred and fifty strong. As 
the plebes became yearlings in June some twenty of 
their number, those most soldierly in bearing, in dress 
and in general conduct, were decorated with the chev- 
rons of a corporal. At the end of the second year the 
best of these were advanced to the grade of sergeant — 
the very best becoming sergeant-major and first (or 
"orderly") sergeant. At the end of the third year, 
and just before they entered on the glories of First Class 
camp, the highest prizes of the military course were 
meted out — the model soldier officer of the class becom- 
ing the cadet adjutant, four of their number being ap- 
pointed cadet captains, and twelve were named lieu- 
tenants. In the wildest dreams of his plebe days, if 

6l 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

ever so matter-of-fact a fellow had any, Grant never 
beheld himself in any higher role than that of a cadet 
private — the grade with which all start alike and all 
but a chosen few retain to the end. But something in 
that unobstrusive, uncomplaining youth from southern 
Ohio appealed to the soldier sense of Colonel Smith. 
At all events, some two or three of the class fell short 
of the commandant's expectations and, to Grant's utter 
amaze, his name was read out before the battalion the 
night they returned from ** furlough " late in August — 
Sam Grant was made sergeant. 

It was told at the time that the wit of the class ex- 
plained it by saying " the Commandant had to get ' Sam ' 
out of sight and into the line of file closers where his 
being out of step was less apt to be noticed. The only 
way he could fix it was to make Sam a sergeant." Color 
was given to this half malicious explanation by the fact 
that when the First Class officers were " made," the 
following June, Sergeant Sam was incontinently drop- 
ped. With unrufUcd composure he laid aside the sword 
and stepped back into the ranks, a First Class private, 
and the real explanation was that Grant didn't seek the 
office and didn't want it, because it involved certain 
duties and responsibilities from which he shrank — those 
of reporting minor errors, neglects and misdeeds of 
fellow cadets. 

Certain it is that Grant got more demerit as a 
sergeant than he ever did when a plebe and in any one 
of the years in which he served as private, and yet the 
commandant would have it there was soldier stuff in 
" that young fellow with the old head," and, as has been 
said. Smith lived to prove he was right — lived on to 
see his would-not-be sergeant win the highest honors 
accorded a subaltern in the Mexican war, lived to be his 
pupil's most loyal and devoted subordinate at Donelson, 
and died but a few weeks later up the Tennessee at 
Savannah, his most distinguished and lamented asso- 

62 



WEST POINT AND ITS CURRICULUM 

ciate. Even Sherman had not then reached in Grant's 
affection and gratitude the place held by Charles F. 
Smith. 

" Entirely cool and without emotion," says an old 
friend and neighbor, when he drove him from the end 
of the stage route to the waiting family at Georgetown, 
was " Lys " when he came home on furlough. It 
seems that something of warmth and sentiment was 
looked for, but that wasn't the way of the Grants. 
Hearty " How are yous ? " passed between father, son 
and brothers, but the meeting between the mother and 
her first-born, now in his twentieth year, was not for 
even neighbors' eyes to see, nor for Grant to speak of 
then or thereafter. Frank as are his Memoirs, there are 
some matters he leaves to the imagination. For in- 
stance, there was one matter greatly to his young 
renown which he does not mention at all. 

Perhaps it is because there was no need, for all West 
Point was telling of it at the time, and it was not long in 
spreading throughout the army. In his cadet days there 
was one accomplishment in which he outclassed the 
entire Corps. He was but a tolerable fencer, he was no 
dancer, but even the riding master himself was no match 
for him in horsemanship. Sam Grant's riding was the 
envy of every man who saw it. 

Only in 1839 had riding become a part of the in- 
struction at the Point, the first teacher being James 
McAuley, who is said to have had a fair knowledge of 
the old-time cavalry seat and not much else. Neverthe- 
less, it was he who schooled the Class of '43 until within 
six months of their graduation, v/hen he resigned and 
his place was promptly filled by a gruff and martial 
dragoon of the German type — one Henry R. Hersh- 
berger, who lasted six years, and saw Grant's, and 
five other classes through their graduation ride. 

Mention has been made of the queer lot of horses 
at the Point in 1840. Few of them were good, some 

63 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

were positively bad, and one or two well nigh intract- 
able. Of the last was a big, raw-boned sorrel, named 
York, He had a trick of rearing and tumbling over 
backwards that was disconcerting to most riders. 
McAuley could do nothing with him, but young Grant 
quietly said he thought the horse could be ridden, and 
proceeded to show how. No matter what the brute 
could do, except lie clown and roll, Grant seemed to 
stick to him like a burr. He broke him of rearing and 
tumbling by a well-directed tap or two of the butt of 
the pistol, between the cars. Then with patience in- 
exhaustible he began to teach that horse belter manners. 
*' He"ll kill you some day, Sam," said a classmate. " I 
can die but once," is said to have been Grant's answer, 
though it sounds unlike him. York became known as 
Grant's horse, and when pompous old llcrshbcrger 
took up the reins in Januar>', '43, he speedily saw in 
Grant the most accomplished rider and trainer in the 
class, and wisely left him to his own devices. The 
result is an old story, best told, probably, by General 
James B. Fry in his Reminiscences. Grant in his 
Memoirs never so much as refers to it. 
As General Fry says: 

"The class, still mounted, was formed in line through the 
centre of the hall. The ridinp master placed the leaping bar 
higher than a man's head and called out ' Cadet Grant.' A 
clean-faced, slender, blue-eyed young fellow, weighing about 
one hundred and twenty pounds, dashed from the ranks on a 
powerfully built chestnut-sorrel horse, and galloped down the 
opposite side of the hall. As he turned at the farther end and 
came into the stretch at which the bar was placed, the horse 
increased his pace and measuring his stride for the great leap 
before him, bounded into the air and cleared the bar, carrying 
his rider as if man and beast had been welded together. The 
spectators were breathless." 

Prof. Coppee's description of York and his method 
of leaping adds to the fame of Grant's horsemanship. It 
would seem that York in taking a high bar never did 

64 



WEST POINT AND ITS CURRICULUM 

so from the stride, but rather as the cat leaps, crouch- 
ing first and then bounding upward — the most difficult 
of all leaps for the rider to sit either gracefully or 
securely. 

Moreover, Coppee's description of Grant, the cadet 
rider, goes more into detail. The picture he draws of 
the quiet young horseman is typical of the times. The 
Corps had no riding dress in '43. The designated 
platoon donned its oldest coat and trousers, held the 
latter down over the shoe by the strap of the uncouth 
spurs then issued to our dragoons ; the cadets went 
through their hour in the dust and dirt and semi- 
darkness, with little thought of appearances. Neither 
then nor for fifty years thereafter did the cadets learn 
very much of the finesse of equitation. The methods 
were as crude as the mounts, but in most cases a good 
military seat was acquired and many a dashing cavalr}^ 
rider was developed. For many a long year the record 
of Sam Grant and York stood unmatched, and the 
methods of the riding hall unchanged. 

Riding and reading seem to have been Grant's only 
recreation during the few years of his cadet life. There 
was one diversion or distraction, however, that is sig- 
nificant. Although he did not dance it seems that even 
in undergraduate days he was susceptible to feminine 
influence, and to one of his most loyal friends and faith- 
ful biographers Grant himself told the story. The last 
two years of his academic life were quite filled with 
romantic dreamings in which a certain fair daughter 
of the Jerseys was the central figure. Always courteous 
and gentle to women, Grant found pleasure in their 
society. He was a good talker, too, and a cheery com- 
panion. One who knew and admired him, wrote of his 
sunny manner, and his trim, slender, soldierly form. 
West Point had taken the farm boy stoop out of his 
back and shoulders, even though it returned with the 
weight of cares and the farm days that followed his 
5 65 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

resignation from the army in '54. Though never at- 
taining the cadet standard of soldierly smartness, Grant 
seemed martial enough, no doubt, in the eyes of girl 
friends at home and at the Point. In one of these 
latter he became sentimentally interested, yet won his 
wager that she would marry before he would be free 
to wed. It was fortunate for his peace of mind, per- 
haps, that he saw the inevitable in abundant time. 

And as it drew toward its close Grant's cadet life 
proved after all not so wearisome. He had acquired a 
fine education in science, a fair one in histor}' and in 
the essentials, — a mental discipline given probably in 
those days in no other school in the United States, and 
he had blossomed out, as it were, during the last two 
years, — mingled more with his kind and become known 
to and appreciated by his fellows in the Corps. That 
cheery manner had gained him the good will of men in 
the upper classes, even while it endeared him to so 
many of his own. As for the juniors, as they entered 
year by year, his simple kindliness, his utter lack of 
pretense, speedily won him their liking, and as they 
grew to observe him and better to know him, that liking 
became solid respect. In his own class he had little by 
little come to be looked upon as one of the soundest, 
surest men, " Not brilliant," said they, " but shrewd, 
square and full of common sense." 

Even in " plcbe " days there had been First Classmen 
who had a pleasant word for Grant. There was his 
" statesman," Sherman, from up Lancaster way, a quick, 
ner\-ous, energetic, talkative fellow. There was the 
grave, dignified Virginian Thomas, there were Van- 
Vliet and Getty and that farsighted Southerner Ewell, 
who at the outbreak of the war in '61 was heard to 
say: "There's one man I hope the North won't find 
out in time. He's quick and resolute and daring," and 
he was speaking of Grant. In the class next Sherman's 
were Lyon, Garesche and John F. Reynolds, all gallant 

66 



WEST POINT AND ITS CURRICULUM 

soldiers, all destined to be shot dead in battle for the 
Union. There were the two Gametts, Bob and Dick, 
both to die fighting for the other side. There was Levi 
Gantt, who was to head the stormers at Chapultepec, 
and fall " shot to flinders," yet urging on his men. There 
was Richardson, who was to meet his soldier fate at 
Antietam, and Don Carlos Buell, destined to command 
the Army of the Ohio side by side with him, Grant, of 
the Army of the Tennessee. In the class just ahead of 
Grant was another of his statesmen — Rosecrans, whom 
he was to relieve at Chattanooga. There were George 
Mason and Henry Stanton, whom he envied, because 
they entered the dragoons on graduation, both doomed 
to die in battle. There was Williamson, whom in '51 
he envied even more, because he had become professor 
of mathematics at the Kentucky Military Institute. 
There was the tall Southerner, Longstreet, who was to 
stand up as one of his supporters at his wedding, and 
stand up against him in many a hard-fought field, and, 
later still, by him and because of him, to be drawn again 
into the fold of the Union. 

Then entering the year after him were men whose 
friendship he valued. Buckner, of Kentucky, who 
" staked " him when his fortunes were at lowest ebb, 
whose sword he received in unconditional surrender at 
Donelson, and whose purse he replenished on the spot. 
There were Burwell, Woods, and J. P. Smith, who 
battled side by side with him at Molino, Monterey and 
Chapultepec, each dying on the field, while he, fighting 
as fearlessly, went on without a scar to the achievement 
of his higher destiny. There was Hancock, superb 
on many a field and unrivalled as a corps commander. 
There was Aleck Hayes who, brave as Caesar and be- 
loved among his generals, was to die under him in the 
Wilderness. There was Reed, another object of his 
envy, because in 1850 he, too, had been summoned to 
the Kentucky institution as professor. There was still 

67 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

another class, that of 1845, in which he had friends and 
followers — yearlings who looked up to him as a First 
Classman, and were close to him in days to come — 
Davy Russell, of his own Fourth Infantry, who was to 
fall " beneath a soldier's blow " in battle in the Shenan- 
doah, Perry, who was to die fighting at Molino. There 
were " Baldy " Smith and Thomas J. Wood, who were 
to win the double stars under his command. There 
was Thomas G. Pitcher, who, in 1861, mustered into 
the military service of the United States the Twenty- 
first Illinois Infantry \'olunteers, with their colonel 
U. S. Grant — Pitcher whom in time it was to be 
Grant's lot as acting Secretary of War to select for the 
superintendency of West Point, a jump at once from the 
highest corps to what was held to be the lowest, when 
in 1866 the congress took the Academy from the con- 
trol of the Engineers and threw it open to the line. 

There were even plebes who looked up to him, as 
plebes ever will to First Classmen, lads who entering in 
'42 spent one year with him in the battalion. Of these 
Avere George B. McClcllan and Thomas J. Jackson, 
names destined to become famous but a few years 
later, to be linked with his own in Mexico, as was that 
of gallant " Sandy " Rodgcrs, who, joining (Grant's 
regiment after Monterey, died fighting among the fore- 
most at Chapultepec. In this class, too, were Stone- 
man, Wilkins, Wilcox and Thomas McConnell, who was 
to be adjutant of the Fourth Infantry and Grant's fel- 
low staff officer, and finally, at the foot of the class, 
George E. Pickett, of whom hereafter. 

Chosen friends he had in his own class. There were 
a dozen of them who formed a little circle within the 
class, the T. I. O. (twelve in one), the dozen who wore 
a ring with a mystic symbol, and swore eternal friend- 
ship, as boys will, and kept it, as boys seldom do. Then 
as graduation drew nigh, and the class were bidden to 
set down their preferences for future employment in 

68 



WEST POINT AND ITS CURRICULUM 

the army, Grant promptly declared himself for the 
Dragoons. 

Great was his disappointment, though not his sur- 
prise, when a few weeks later there reached him at the old 
home in Ohio the brief official announcement that, as 
brevet second lieutenant he had been assigned to the 
Fourth Regiment of Infantry and ordered at the ex- 
piration of his graduation leave to report at Jefferson 
Barracks. There was just one consolation, that was 
closeness to the home of his chum, classmate and, toward 
the last, his roommate at the Point — Frederick T. Dent, 
of Missouri. That he should some day be general-in- 
chief was already one of Grant's beliefs or fancies, as 
he has frankly told us. That he should find his own 
domestic commander-in-chief in the sister of his for- 
mer chum and in the suburbs of St. Louis he does not 
seem to have anticipated. 



CHAPTER VII 
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF ARMY LIFE 

It cannot be said that Grant's entry into the miUtary 
service was auspicious. There were several reasons for 
this. First was the old antipathy to the career of a 
soldier — he much preferred the arts of peace, the as- 
sociations of the home, the farni, the fireside. His 
tastes were domestic, and his belief at the time of gradu- 
ation was that the United States would have little need 
of soldiers. In the second place his health had begun 
to suffer. The fever and ague of his boyhood had left 
him keenly sensitive to colds, and about Christmas 
time he had contracted a cough which refused to yield 
to the treatment in vogue at the Point, which increased 
as June drew nigh, and which sent him home reduced 
in flesh and looking and feeling far from well. There 
had been consumption in the family, and both his 
father and mother became alarmed. Let it be recorded 
at once, however, that fears of consumption were 
banished and the cough gradually routed by the best and 
most rational treatment yet devised — abundance of open 
air, sunshine and healthful exercise. As when on cadet 
furlough, Grant found an excellent roadster all ready 
for his use, in the old barn, and he spent many hours 
of every day in saddle, and sometimes in driving, with 
mother, sister, or possibly some Georgetown girl as a 
companion, and long before his leave expired he was 
well on the way to robust health. Yet he was not happy. 
It has pleased some of his biographers to speak of his 
class standing as rather low. This is unjust. In all 
the really difficult branches, those which call for mathe- 
matical ability, his standing was high. Moreover, we 
know that his professors considered him one of the 

70 



FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF ARMY LIFE 

brainiest men of his class. Hardie, his classmate, has 
gone on record as having said in the spring of 1843 : 
"If ever the country is confronted by a great emergency 
Sam Grant will be the man to meet it." Prof. Davies 
declared at Columbia College in New York City, the 
winter of 1861-62, that he had predicted Grant's gen- 
eralship as far back as the month of his graduation, 
and was confident that Prof. Church had equal con- 
fidence in him. That Church had that confidence as 
far back as 1843 ^s obvious from the fact that he assured 
Grant of a detail as instructor in the Department of 
Mathematics. 

As summed up in June, 1843, Grant came out six- 
teenth in engineering and seventeenth in chemistry. 
He had stood sixteenth in mathematics the first year 
and tenth the second. He was well up in mechanics 
and in astronomy. It was in French, in ethics, and in 
the drill books, that he fell below twenty. In artillery, 
for instance, he stood as near the foot as he did in 
French, and in the matter of demerit for minor breaches 
of the regulations he was, as has been said, among the 
" lower fourth." His general standing at graduation 
(twenty-one out of thirty-nine) was lowered, therefore, 
by these lapses in branches he looked upon with rather 
good-natured indifference. 

But if a military career after all was to be his, a 
commission in the Dragoons would suit him better than 
any other branch. He knew and loved horses, knew 
how to train, care for and humor them. He felt that 
he would be a capable and useful cavalry ofificer, and 
therefore sought the mounted service. In those days 
we had two regiments of Dragoons and one of Mounted 
Rifles. Grant had asked for the Dragoons. Now if he 
had asked for the Rifles, he might have had his wish. 
The War Department for some reason refused at first 
to commission any of the Class of '43 in the Dragoons. 
It assigned George Stevens, Lewis Neill, Rufus Ingalls 

71 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

and Cave J. Couts to the Rifles, and later transferred 
them to the Dragoons. Grant, too, might have suc- 
ceeded had he availed himself of this roundabout 
method, but his application was uncompromising: 
"Dragoons or Fourth Infantry" — and infantry it 
proved to be. 

Along late in August the new unifonn came — the 
severe, single-breasted, dark-blue frock coat of the ex- 
isting regulations, absolutely clerical in cut and plain- 
ness, its only ornament the row of brass buttons, a pair 
of shoulder-straps to be woni for " undress," and a 
pair of gilt epaulets for parade. With this were pre- 
scribed sky-blue trousers with a white stripe down the 
outer seam, a plain black leather sword belt, a sash of 
crimson silk net, and a flat " Palmetto " cap. There 
was little to attract the eye in the dress of a soldier 
of these United States in 1843. There was even less in 
'61, and Grant's first public appearance in the garb of a 
subaltern of infantry, as indicative of the respect in 
which it was held by the proletariat, disgusted him to 
the extent of wishing he might never have to wear it 
again. Although in saddle, where he appeared to best 
advantage, and in the everyday uniform, without sash, 
belt or epaulets, he was greeted with derisive grins 
and gibes by youthful fellow citizens, and on his re- 
turn from a ride to Cincinnati, foimd that magnate the 
village blacksmith swaggering ostentatiously about 
with a pair of broad white stripes of cotton pinned to 
his trouser seams in obvious and satirical imitation. It 
is comfort to scores of his brother officers of every 
grade who on many an occasion have had to suffer like 
indignities, sometimes at the hands of men who knew 
better, that they had this at least in common with Grant. 

The incidents recorded here added not a little to 
Grant's aversion to the service. There were times when 
Grant looked at his father's busy tannery, and asked 
himself whether it might not have been better to gradu- 

72 



FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF ARMY LIFE 

ate even there; but, once again the old lesson came up 
before him : he had put his hand to the plough, he had 
agreed to serve four years as an officer in return for 
his four years as a cadet, and those four years, at least 
must be paid in full. If they could be spent teaching 
mathematics under Prof. Church at the Point, it might 
not be so bad. While thus detailed he could be on look- 
out for a professorship in some college, university or 
academy, and with Prof. Church's recommendation and 
influence there was little doubt that he could secure a 
position as many another had done before him. 

Another matter deserving serious thought was that 
of pay. The generally accepted idea concerning a West 
Pointer was that of a young man who had been 
boarded, lodged, clothed, coddled and exhaustively 
educated, all at the expense of the nation, and in ad- 
dition had been paid nearly a dollar a day — " big 
wages " at that time. It is true that the cadet was 
paid twenty- four dollars a month ; but not until he left 
the Point on leave or furlough did he ever see a cent of 
it. It is true that he was given lodging in barracks, 
and medical attendance when ill or injured, and a most 
thorough schooling in science and in discipline, but there 
the beneficence ended. Out of his eighty cents a day 
the cadet had to pay for every item of his uniform 
and clothing, for every morsel that he ate or microbe 
that he drank, for his barber, his baths, for even the 
band, in part at least, for blacking and varnishing, for 
his blankets, mattress, pillow, his every text book, his 
drawing materials, his shoes, gloves, belts, buckles, 
brasses, shako, sash and plume, if a cadet officer (and 
costly items were they, for in the sixties it took much 
more than a month's pay to buy the sash itself). In 
fact, if it were not for the monthly stoppage of two 
dollars to provide for " equipment " on graduation 
hardly a man could hope to emerge with a cent to his 
credit, and in the days of Grant the graduate would 

73 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

begin life in the line with the munificent pay of about 
fifty dollars per mensem, added to which were four 
rations per diem, valued at forty cents, and the cost 
of one soldier servant, estimated at eleven dollars a 
month, plus a ration a day. The total amount of his 
stipend was less than one hundred dollars a month 
out of which to defray every expense except those of 
a living room, a doctor, and wood sufficient to warm 
him. Furthermore it was expected and required of hiin 
that on this sum he should maintain the dignity and 
station of a gentleman, and be ready to entertain hos- 
pitably such fellow citizens as came his way — and many 
did. 

And yet, fortunately for the United States, one may 
hazard, there were officers and gentlemen who in spite 
of these and other considerations, found pleasure in 
army life and association, or else they were gifted with 
a sense of duty that held them wedded to the task in 
hand. 

In his Memoirs Grant says very little of his home 
life during those three months of rest and recuperation. 
Late in August, however, much restored in health, he 
bade the household adieu, drove to Cincinnati and there 
took steamer down stream and, in good season, reached 
what was then one of the largest and most populous of 
the military posts of the United States. Headquarters 
and eight of the ten companies of the Fourth Infantry, 
whh as many from the Third, made up the garrison of 
Jefferson Barracks, only ten miles below St. Louis. 
A fine old soldier. Colonel Stephen W. Kearny, was 
the commanding officer. Another and already famous 
officer was Lieutenant Colonel Ethan Allen Hitchcock, 
commanding the Third Infantry, and the very centre 
of garrison talk and interest because of his having for 
the second or third time braved the displeasure of our 
magnificent General Scott. Hitchcock was a monarch 
among army men as a scholar, a tactician, a student of 

74 



FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF ARMY LIFE 

law and regulations. Lieutenant Don Carlos Buell had 
just been tried by court-martial for striking a soldier. 
The evidence was conclusive that the soldier had at- 
tacked the lieutenant, who struck only in self-defense. 
Scott had demanded that the court reassemble and ex- 
plain why it had not found him guilty. Hitchcock 
wrote the reasons why the court could not be compelled 
to alter its findings, and the President sustained the 
court. It was only one of several occasions on which 
Hitchcock's letters or opinions defeated the will of the 
imperious general, who eventually learned to lean upon 
the advice of the man he almost detested, and at the 
outset of his famous campaign in Mexico he wisely 
attached Hitchcock to his staff. In years to come this 
same gifted soldier was to throw his stalwart influence 
in support of the commanding general of an infinitely 
greater army, and his regard for the general in question 
began in the autumn of 1843 when, as Brevet Second 
Lieutenant Grant, he served under Hitchcock's daily 
observation at Jefferson Barracks. 

And there were others. The quarters were crowded, 
several of the junior officers living two in a room. The 
barracks could not begin to accommodate all the troops. 
Some of the companies were under canvas. Some of 
the officers were permitted to find quarters among the 
hospitable homes of residents in the immediate neighbor- 
hood. The city was near enough to enable them to drive 
thither for social enjoyment, but most of the entertain- 
ing took place at the garrison. The barracks were a 
famous resort for the beaux and belles of the neighbor- 
hood. Music and dancing, or riding and driving parties, 
filled up the leisure hours. Drills and duties except 
the daily dress parade were usually completed in the 
morning, and the first winter of Grant's garrison life 
moved swiftly and not unpleasantly away. 

Mindful of Prof. Church's promise to apply for 
him as assistant in the Department of Mathematics, 

75 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

the young officer was studiously going over the two 
years' course, from algebra to calculus, by way of 
preparation. Not being a dancing man himself, he 
stood his share of the expenses, but took little part in 
the enjoyment. He might have escaped social entangle- 
ments of any kind but for the riding parties in which 
he was so much at home. The best horseman in the 
garrison could hardly be expected to mount and ride 
always alone, and among the kindly, hospitable house- 
holds within easy ride of the barracks was that of the 
Dents, at White Haven, the home of his chum and 
roommate. Brevet Second Lieutenant Frederick T. 
Dent, now of the old Sixth Infantry, and many a mile 
away. Here the name of Ulysses Grant soon became 
familiar as household words. It seems that Grant was 
very much in evidence when there returned to the fire- 
side a member of the family who had been away 
" finishing " at school, then visiting relatives at other 
points — a seventeen-year-old girl, eldest of the daugh- 
ters and one possessing many an attraction. Letters 
from home had told her much of Fred's classmate. 
Lieutenant Grant. Home chat had told him much of the 
absent sister. Though they had never met before, they 
met by no means as strangers when for the first time 
these young people looked into each other's eyes and 
began a comradeship that was destined to become a 
permanent alliance. Julia Dent had not been home a 
month before her friends began the inevitable teasing 
and chaffing, and the man in the case was " the little 
lieutenant in the big epaulets " — Ulysses Simpson Grant. 
It seems furthermore that the odds at first were 
not on the side of the young subaltern. There were 
these points in his favor: He had been Fred's room- 
mate through the last year of their cadet life. They 
were fellow members of that little " wheel within a 
wheel," the T. I. O. Brother Fred's letters from the 

76 



FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF ARMY LIFE 

Point had had much to say in praise of his chum, and 
the girls especially were prepared to like him. Then 
it was an odd coincidence that just when the brother 
had gone to join the Sixth Infantry at a distant station, 
his chosen friend should arrive at the barracks, and 
speedily take the brother's place at the fireside. 

All over the broad United States, in every household 
from which a son has been sent through West Point 
or Annapolis to distant lands or seas, no visitor is so 
eagerly welcomed as he who comes as classmate, com- 
rade or intimate of the absent one. In the case of 
Brother Fred's own " Sam " Grant, every member of 
the family circle was eager to make him at home. 
Simple, straightforward, cheery and kindly in manner, 
gifted with innate courtesy toward all women and 
schooled by love for his own mother to constant thought 
for and deference to other mothers, it resulted that 
even before the return of the eldest daughter he had 
won the hearty friendship of Mrs. Dent. A more 
potent ally than the prospective mother-in-law no suitor 
needs. Moreover, the elder Dent, independently of his 
son's biased estimate, had taken a fancy to the level- 
headed youth in the queer, straight-cut, regimental 
frock. A limited few of our young graduates in those 
days had quit the army for a higher service and taken 
holy orders. All they had to do in changing coats was 
to strip the gilt buttons from the uniform, dip it in the 
dyer's vat, and lo, the garb of the soldier of his country 
had changed to that of the soldier of the cross. Mr. 
Dent — Colonel Dent, as hailed in the American fashion 
of that and many another day — was a fairly well-to-do 
merchant in St. Louis, with a country home and planta- 
tion some miles southwest of town and to the west of 
Jefferson Barracks. The Dents were slave-holders, as 
were many Missouri folk, even as far north as the Iowa 
line, and " de Gunnel " as his " darkies " called the 
master, had an eye for a good horse and for a horse- 

77 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

man. The " cunnel " speedily discovered that in his 
unassuming way young Grant was a wonderful man- 
ager of horse flesh, and this in itself was much to com- 
mand the elder's liking. One and all, therefore, they 
had grown to greatly fancy Fred's chum, when along in 
the winter Miss Julia came home, and then speedily it 
began to dawn upon the family that further possibilities 
were looming before them. 

The young people seemed to fall in with each other's 
ways from the start. Duties at barracks were light in 
mid-winter. Grant found it possible to spend hours 
away from his books. For him in those days " the mess " 
room had no fascinations. He took no part in the six 
penny game of " Brag " — the southwestern prelude to 
poker. He took no comfort in the so-called pleasures 
of the tabic, for he never ate more than enough to 
sustain life, and he had not then bcgim to know either 
the stimulus or the sting that lives and lures in the 
bottle. He frankly disliked the dancing parties and he 
as little cared for the pomp and ceremony of parade. 
Battalion and company drill, as required by Colonel 
Kearny, he conscientiously took part in, but most of his 
afternoons he later spent in saddle and his evenings in 
study, having that instructorship ever in view. And 
when he began to appear at garrison parties that winter 
it was to stand and watch Julia Dent dancing with men 
whose feet could move in rhythm with the witching 
strains of Julicn's waltzes (for this was before the 
days of Gungl. Strauss and Kcler Bela), and were at 
home in the nimble caperings demanded by the polka 
or the schottische then in vogue. The concerts of the 
regimental band had been neglected functions so far as 
Grant was concerned, until some little time after Miss 
Dent's return. Then he began to take his place as one 
of the audience, although the only music that appealed 
to him was that of the young girl's joyous voice. 

But if in concert hall, on ballroom floor, or at the 
78 



FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF ARMY LIFE 

banquet board her admirer appeared to little advantage, 
there was none to match him when they went afield. 
The Dent girls rode, and rode well, as did many of the 
daughters of our Southern planters, and Grant rode as 
though he had spent his life in saddle. Long hours in 
the crisp sunshine of the Missouri winter they galloped 
through the wood paths and along the beautiful bluffs 
of the Father of Waters. Then as the spring came on 
and the young girl could indulge in her favorite study, 
botany, Grant was her constant escort. Of farm lore 
and maxims he had a head full. Of oats, barley, wheat 
and hay, corn and potatoes he had had practical knowl- 
edge, but in Nature's flower garden he was a novice and 
she was at home, and took delight in teaching, and the 
young student of science and mathematics who longed 
to quit soldiering, found that with one girl looking on 
even soldier life had taken on a charm, found that even 
the dreary hour of drill or parade had become gifted 
with a glamour never known to him before. And then 
one soft spring morning, venturing too far from the 
beaten track, her young and skittish mount, floundering 
and plunging in suddenly-discovered quicksand, well 
nigh hurled Miss Dent from saddle into the muddy 
waters. It took all her slender, sinewy young escort's 
skill and horsemanship to save her, and as they rode 
homeward that evening it became revealed to him at 
least that any injury to her would mean misery to him. 
What the incident had revealed to her he dared not at 
the moment inquire. What on earth could warrant a 
girl's leaving a home of ease, almost of luxury, to 
share the one room and a kitchen, then the legal lot, 
and something like eight hundred a year, the sum total 
of the pay and emoluments of a second lieutenant of 
infantry in the regular army? 

No wonder Colonel Dent of a sudden took alarm! 



CHAPTER VIII 

AN INTERRUPTED COURTSHIP 

But graver matters than even paternal objections 
had come to put an end to botanizing and to postpone 
for a time at least the telling of the old, old story. 
Troublous days were in store, especially for the South, 
which section had encouraged the separation of Texas 
from the Republic of Mexico, and was now fathering 
a scheme to annex the great territory to the United 
States. It would mean vast gain to Southern representa- 
tion and influence in Congress, and vastly greater exten- 
sion to the area of slavery. It is not the purpose of 
this volume to dissect the political questions leading to 
the two wars in which Ulysses Grant took part, but 
rather to attempt to describe the characteristics which 
made him a most distinguished soldier in both. Once 
upon a time, discussing the career of the great captains 
of history, a close student ventured on the assertion 
that no great general had failed to show in youth the 
qualities that made him famous. Instantly came the 
query: "How about Grant — who ever heard of him 
before Belmont?" The answer was courteous, con- 
fident and instant: "Grant is a case in point. Of all 
the lieutenants of the Army in Mexico Grant was per- 
haps the most conspicuous for soldiership, for daring 
and ability." For the moment it was thought that the 
speaker was utterly in error, but to the minds of all who 
heard he presently proved his case. As to this the 
reader may form independent opinion later on. 

In the spring of 1844 relations between the United 
States and Mexico had become so strained that the 
" First Military Department " which bordered on the 
then independent State of Texas, was ordered rein- 

80 



AN INTERRUPTED COURTSHIP 

forced. General Zachary Taylor, old " Rough and 
Ready," was its commanding officer and headquarters 
were at Fort Jesup, a few miles southward from Grand 
Ecore on the Red River. The South was vehemently 
cheering the Texans and championing the proposed 
annexation. The North was less vehemently opposed. 
Fair-minded statesmen saw in the move a wrong to a 
sister republic, hitherto courteous and friendly. The 
Grant household at Georgetown, in spite of the strong 
Southern and pro-slavery sentiments of Brown County, 
was divided in spirit. Right or wrong the administra- 
tion had determined on a show of force along the border. 
Grant saw and heard it coming, knew that the Fourth 
Infantry doubtless would be among the first ordered 
to the front, and sought a twenty days' leave in which to 
visit home and see the family. There were serious 
matters concerning his future and he wished to consult 
his father. 

And so it happened he was away from JefTerson 
Barracks when marching orders came, and the gal- 
lant Fourth was distributed among several of the old- 
time, high pressure, " passenger packets " plying be- 
tween St. Louis, Memphis, Vicksburg, Natchez and 
New Orleans, and paddled away over the June rise of 
the mighty river, destined to see many a stirring day of 
battle and many a mile of marching ere ever it should 
again breast the tawny waters of the Mississippi. 

The news reached the young officer too late to enable 
him to catch his regiment. The same message told him 
that his field kit had been boxed up and taken along by 
a thoughtful comrade. There was really nothing pro- 
fessional to demand his return to Jefiferson Barracks. 
The shortest road to the regiment and to duty was 
down stream past Cairo and Columbus, — where less 
than twenty years thereafter he was destined to be 
the centre of national attention — past Memphis and 
Vicksburg, where later he was not to be journeying 
6 8i 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

solitary and unnoted. Yet it seems from his own 
Memoirs that instead of at once following on after the 
colors of the Fourth, he fled back to his haunts at 
Jefferson Barracks, deserted now by all save a mourn- 
ful lot of wives, children, laundresses and " hospital " 
soldiers, all temporarily in charge of a certain lieutenant 
of dragoons, one Benjamin S. Ewell, an upper class 
cadet when Grant was a plebe. The garrison had 
dwindled from sixteen companies of foot to a handful 
of non-combatants, and the command from a colonel 
to a comet. Ewell, with Sherman and Thomas, had 
taken note of Grant, as first classmen " size up " a plebe, 
and Ewell was unfeigncdly glad to see his young friend 
again, glad to bid him share his quarters during his 
stay, glad to take the responsibility as post commander 
of adding a few days to his brief leave of absence, for 
it speedily dawned upon Ewell that there was a lady in 
the case. 

Out toward the old Gravois road galloped Grant the 
very day of his arrival, through the scenes made sweet 
and sacred by the presence and companionship of the 
girl whom now he was seeking with well-defined pur- 
pose; and, barely half-way to the Dent homestead, he 
found the " branch," usually a placid and unpretentious 
creek, well nigh boiling over its banks. The ford was 
six feet deep in a turbid flood. Bridge there was none. 
There was nothing for it but turn back and wait for 
the waters to recede, or to spur in and swim. It was a 
superstition of his, says Grant, in his Memoirs, never 
to turn back when once he had set forth to do a thing. 
It was the same old lesson of the plough that he had 
learned long years before, the lesson that was to hold 
him steadfast in the snows about Donelson, stern set 
in the siege of Vicksburg, and indomitable even against 
the fearful pounding from the Rapidan to the James — 
the never look back, never turn back spirit that swept 
him onward to final victor)'. It was a drenched and 

82 



AN INTERRUPTED COURTSHIP 

bedraggled Leander that reached the astonished and 
welcoming Hero of that Missouri Hellespont. Brother 
Fred's cast-off " cits " had to be levied on, and the 
new arrival dried out, before he could take his ac- 
customed place at the family board, but even such a 
drenching could not chill the ardor of so determined 
a wooer. 

Before they parted Julia Dent had given her word 
to that " little lieutenant in the big epaulets," but in 
plighting her troth she had secured to herself the life- 
long devotion of a man as steadfast in love as ever 
he stood in war. From the day of their engagement 
in the early summer of 1844, the fiercest critic, the 
bitterest foe, of Grant's fortunes and fame could never 
find the shadow of a story on which to found a whisper 
of scandal. To his dying day the woman never lived 
who could win from Grant one look, word or thought 
that of right belonged to Julia Dent. 

Alexander the Great was cold to women. Caesar 
was not above suspicion, whatever he demanded of 
his wife. Marlborough, Napoleon, Nelson and many 
among their predecessors in martial renown, and many 
among their train, however constant to their war god- 
dess, Bellona, have succumbed to the smiles and wiles 
of women other than the lawful partner of their joys 
and sorrows. But for this Ulysses there never lived 
a Circe. The drums and fifes of the Fourth were play- 
ing " The Girl I Left Behind Me " the day " Sam " 
Grant rejoined the colors at Fort Jesup (possibly 
their adjutant was responsible for that), and there was 
a new light in the blue-gray eyes, and a fine blush on the 
fair skin and clean-cut face of this old-headed youngster 
of the regiment as " the mess " gathered about him with 
their laughing greetings, but that suspected engagement, 
as yet a secret between him and the lady of his love, was 
no laughing matter to Lieutenant Grant. It was to in- 
fluence, indeed to dominate, his entire life. The star 

83 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

of his destiny might lead him on to the highest honors 
that in peace or in war the nation ever yet had bestowed 
upon a son, but the centre of his universe was the fire- 
side where dwelt this daughter of the West. Rewards 
such as no man ever yet had been accorded by the 
people of the United States were to him as little worth 
except as valued and shared by Julia Dent. 

And now there came a year of watchfulness and 
anxiety. Mexico had not yet taken open offense at the 
open hostility of the southern half of the bigger and 
stronger republic, but there were reasons innumerable 
for knowing that war must come. Meantime our little 
army had to be put in at least partial readiness. 

So much of it as was camped in the charming glade 
country southwest of Natchitoches — Camp Salubrity, 
they called it — was living in clover. The climate, the 
country, the country folk were all charming and hos- 
pitable. The troops drilled and lived and throve in the 
open air. In their leisure hours and on rainy days the 
officers sometimes took to cards, and Longstreet tells 
us that they occasionally quit the game — poker as then 
practised — quite concerned over the loss of seventy- 
five cents, as well they might be when it represented 
so large a fraction of the subaltern's daily stipend. 
They started dances and dinners by way of return for 
the hospitalities of neighboring planters. They essayed 
private theatricals, and there is regimental tradition 
that because of his slender, supple form and fair, smooth 
complexion and regular features, they once cast young 
Grant for the part of Desdemona, before they realized 
that histrionics formed no part whatsoever of his 
make-up. Grant, it is remembered, paid his appropriate 
share in all expenses for entertainment, but otherwise 
had little interest in them. It seems that the winter 
of 44-5 was to him one of serious thought and reflec- 
tion. He spent long hours in saddle and alone, living 
in the sunshine and the open air, banishing thoroughly 

84 



AN INTERRUPTED COURTSHIP 

the last vestige of that semi-consumptive cough that 
had worried his mother the year before. He wrote 
long letters, he listened with attentive ears to all the 
debates, sometimes heated and acrimonious, as to the 
rights and wrongs of the questions at issue between the 
United States of America and the neighboring republic 
of Mexico. The more he heard the more he became 
convinced that Mexico was being drawn into a war 
with a stronger nation, without a vestige of right on 
the stronger side — the side which, by his oath of office 
taken on receipt of his commission, he was sworn to 
maintain against all enemies or opposers whomsoever. 
Consider now the painful position in which this 
officer in particular was placed. The profession Itself 
was not of his choosing. He had never liked "soldier- 
ing," as it was called. He mastered with ease the scien- 
tific part of his military education but had never be- 
come even a moderately good drill officer. Guard duty, 
and the minor and manifold duties of a subaltern in 
garrison such as supervising issue of clothing, attend- 
ing roll-calls, writing up records of garrison courts, 
boards of survey, etc., he had conscientiously attended 
to, but his captain probably did most of the drilling; 
Grant never considered that his strong suit. He had 
won the name of being a thoroughly dutiful subordinate 
but by no means enthusiastic officer. The story told by 
one of his biographers of his having with drawn sword 
threatened a lieutenant-colonel of his regiment sounds 
almost incredible, even though, as told, the colonel had 
said, " That isn't so," in reply to a statement of Grant 
that all the men of his company were present except 
those properly excused. It is most improbable that a 
young lieutenant should turn upon his superior and 
threaten to run him through unless instant retraction 
were made. The articles of war prescribed that any 
officer who dared to lift a weapon against a superior in 
the discharge of his duty, should suffer death or such 

85 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

other punishment as a court-martial should direct, and 
Grant was the last man to resort to violence, regulations 
or no regulations. 

He even had the courage to stand up against the 
" code duello," then dominant in the army. He utterly- 
disapproved of the duel, and he didn't care who knew 
it. He held it to be the duty of an officer and the 
custom of a gentleman to govern his tongue and temper, 
and if offense were given, wittingly or unwittingly, then 
to settle the question by lawful and temperate means. 
He was anything but a soldier of the swash-buckling 
type. He was simply a straightforward, unpretentious, 
duty-doing subaltern, neither brilliant, military nor 
showy, a man who would hardly be chosen for the 
position of adjutant, who could never shine on parade, 
but, said the regiment, a man sure to come out strong 
on campaign or in administration, a man who would 
obey orders and do his level best. 

And in this they were right. Utterly disapproving 
the causes leading up to the war, he had determined to 
stand by his colors and his oath of office at least until 
the stipulated four years had expired. Until that time, 
like Decatur, he would say " My country, right or 
wrong." 

That matter settled. Grant went serenely on with 
his preparations. He obtained in the late spring of 
'45 another leave to enable him to visit the Dent home- 
stead, and to secure the until-then withheld consent of 
Dent, the father. In this he was ably seconded by the 
arguments of Dent the son, and still more ably by the 
appeals of the wife and mother. It was hardly the 
match the old planter and slave-owner would have made 
for the eldest daughter of his house and name, but if the 
wife said so and the daughter would have it so, and 
the young man, though poor, was sound and square, 
why, there seemed no help for it. Meantime, how- 
ever, Mr. Dent was mightily interested in the pending 

86 




SKETCH OF THE 

LiRANT AND DENT FARMS 

AND ROADS TO ST. LOUIS 

AND JEFFERSON 

BARRACKS 

Coiirtesy of Major J . i;. PitzilKill 



AN INTERRUPTED COURTSHIP 

questions, in Southern and slave-holding supremacy, 
and in the success of the scheme to acquire Texas, no 
matter what Mexico might think or do. He and his 
prospective son-in-law were not much in accord on 
that matter. Possibly that had something to do with 
the elder's objections, but when a year or so later the 
little commands of Scott and Taylor had won, through 
sheer skill and valor against desperate odds, an astonish- 
ing series of victories, the nation forgot for the time the 
inciting cause — forgot for the time, perhaps forgot en- 
tirely, the fearful cost in young and gallant lives, and 
went wild over the heroism and daring displayed by the 
nation's sons. To the Dent household there came for a 
time anxieties innumerable, as the despatches told the 
tale of killed and wounded, of the Third and Fourth 
Infantry in the thick of every fight and suffering 
heaviest losses, of the gallant fellows with whom the 
girls had danced and dined again and again, so many 
of whom had died at the head of the stormers or " in 
the lead of the rushing charge," of their own son and 
brother, after manful share in the fortunes of his new 
regiment up to the very walls of Mexico, falling pain- 
fully wounded in the assault on the Molino; and then, 
but never in word or letter of his own, of the daring 
exploits, the consummate skill and judgment that had 
distinguished the young suitor soldier who was presently 
to return to them with honors unexcelled by any other 
of his grade, a record won without a scratch and yet 
without a stain. Verily, thought the elder Dent, if 
Grant can do all this in a profession he hates, what can- 
not he do in one that he loves? 

There was no longer obstacle to naming the day. 
As lover, as husband and as father we are to see him 
through many a year. Let us see him through the 
first of his many campaigns. 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

of the battalion, and not until it was learned at Jackson 
Barracks that they were actually destined for ser\'ice, 
did the old gentleman buckle on his sword and attempt 
in person to command at drill. The efTort was too much 
for him — he turned and dropped dead as he left the 
parade ground. This was not the only tragedy that be- 
fell the Fourth before the campaign began. Two of its 
promising young officers, " graduates " both and senior 
to Grant by two or three years, were instantly killed by 
the explosion of the boiler of the steamer Dayton in 
Aransas Bay. One other, senior to both of these, had 
fallen by the wayside at Camp Salubrity, and after 
a fair trial by his brother officers had been summarily 
dismissed. The Fourth took the field with the shadow 
of these regimental sorrows still overhanging, but they 
had long months in which to recuperate, a fine, health- 
ful sea front on which to camp, with abundant room for 
even brigade evolutions, with a capital beach, surf- 
bathing and fishing. The Fourth had. moreover, a com- 
mander in whom they felt confidence, and a new ad- 
jutant by whom they swore, " Charley " Hoskins, of 
the Class of '36 — one of the most gifted and soldierly 
of their number. They had many a distinguished West 
Pointer among their captains — McCall, of the Class of 
'22, Bliss, Alvord and Scott, of the Class of '33 (Bliss 
and Scott serving as aides-de-camp to Taylor and Scott 
respectively) and Henry Prince, of '35. Among their 
junior officers were Dick Graham, of '38, Warren of 
40, Hill and Norton of '42, though the latter w^as away 
at West Point as instructor of tactics, Beaman and 
Perry, of the same class. Augur, Grant, Judah and 
Hazlitt, of '43, Woods and Alexander Hayes, of '44, 
Lincoln, Montgomery, Richey and D. A. Russell, of '45. 
Later in the fall of '46 they were joined by Wilkins 
and Rodgers. 

It was a gallant array, horse, foot and dragoons, 
that set forth under Zachary Taylor early in March, 

90 



THE WAR WITH MEXICO 

'46, and took the road from Corpus Christi southward 
along the sandy coast to the mouth of the Rio Grande. 
It was known that a Mexican force, at least double 
theirs in number, interposed between them and Mata- 
moras, when in May the little army turned confidently 
northward, old " Rough and Ready " leading on. He 
had but six regiments, and a squadron or two of 
dragoons, but his guns and gunners were not to be 
excelled, and the martial spirit of that model command 
was hardly to be equalled. The fire and fury of their 
attack, the impetuous rush of their charge, amazed and 
confounded the slow-moving brigades of the Mexican 
line, and settled for all time the Mexican question on 
Texas soil. 

Fought on May 8th and 9th respectively, the little 
battles of Palo Alto and Resaca sent the enemy scatter- 
ing back across the Rio Grande in utter bewilderment 
and dismay. They had swept the level fields with con- 
centrated fire from their many guns. They had poured 
swift volleys from musket and escopeta into the charg- 
ing, cheering ranks of blue without stopping them at a 
single point. They never knew until long afterward 
how severe a loss they really had inflicted. 

In those spirited affairs our friends of the Fourth 
bore their share and received their due meed of credit. 
Palo Alto was mainly an artillery fight, and the Fourth, 
though itching to get at the enemy's guns, were com- 
pelled to wait until the following day. There is noth- 
ing that tries more severely the mettle and discipline of 
infantry or cavalry than this duty of " supporting " 
artillery, of sitting in saddle or standing in ranks in 
readiness to repel a dash at the guns, receiving heavy 
fire, yet unable to reply. From his station as file closer 
to Captain McCall's Company, it was the lot of Lieu- 
tenant Grant to see more than one huge gap torn 
through the line as the round shot came screaming from 
the smoke clouds a few hundred yards away. One in 

91 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

particular struck off the head of a soldier only a few 
paces away, stretched Captain Page mortally wounded, 
and blinded Lieutenant Wallen with their blood. Palo 
Alto tried the nerve of the Fourth and found it tense 
and true, but it was Resaca that gave the regiment the 
chance it longed for. 

Here Captain McCall was detailed to conduct the 
skirmish line in the opening attack, and it fell to the 
lot of our second lieutenant to step to the front and 
command the company. Quiet and unassuming as 
ever but, as the veteran soldiers did not fail to note, ab- 
solutely calm and collected, their junior subaltern stood 
before them as their commander. In his own Memoirs 
he says the experience was anything but enjoyable. He 
gives the reader to understand that he would rather 
not have been there, yet it transpired that he led his 
men that day with consummate ease and nonchalance, 
even though he had to see a cherished comrade shot 
dead in the thick of the fray. How often, how very 
often, that experience was to be his. How fiercely the 
lightning strokes of battle were to play about his head, 
blasting many a brave young life, yet as God willed, 
doubtless for a mighty purpose, sparing Grant. Omit- 
ting all mention of their seniors or of the members of 
other classes than the seven with which Grant wore 
the West Point gray, there is no better illustration of 
the desperate fighting, of the reckless daring and de- 
voted leadership of the young graduates of the Academy 
than is found in the solemn roster of those who died 
in battle for the honor of Alma Mater and The Flag. 

Of the Class of 1840, Irwin, Adjutant of the Third 
Infantry (as Hoskins was Adjutant of the Fourth), 
was killed among the foremost at Monterey. Bacon, 
foot of the class, died of the wounds received at the 
head of his company at Churubusco. Of this class, too, 
was James G. Martin, who wore an empty sleeve from 
the day of Molino. Of the Class of '41, Irons, Burbank, 
Ernst and Morris died of their wounds. Irons at 

92 



THE WAR WITH MEXICO 

Churubusco, the other three at Molino. Berry, of the 
Fourth Infantry, was one of the victims of the Dayton's 
explosion. Gantt, gallant fellow, was shot dead fore- 
most among the stormers at Chapul tepee. Of the Class 
of '42, Benjamin died at the Belen Gate (Mansfield 
Lovell, his file leader in class standing, barely escaping 
with his life), Mason and Hammond of the Dragoons 
were killed, one at La Rosia, the other at San Pasqiial, 
while Longstreet carried to Grant's wedding, two years 
later, the grim scars of Chapultepec. 

Of their own little band, graduated in '43, Lhad- 
bourne was shot dead in the charge of the Fourth at 
Resaca. Stevens, of the Dragoons, but a few days 
later, met his fate at the crossing of the Rio Grande. 
Hazlitt was killed at Monterey, and Johnstone, serv- 
ing his gtms at Contreras, was struck by the shot of an 
eighteen-pounder and never knew what hit him. Neill, 
as adjutant of the Second Dragoons, and Dent, the 
brother-in-law elect, were severely wounded and for a 
time incapacitated. 

Of their immediate followers, the men of '44, Dil- 
worth, like Johnstone, was swept ofif by a cannon shot. 
Strong and Burwell died at Molino, and Wainwright 
from the wounds there received. Woods was killed 
at Monterey and Smith (J. P.) at Chapultepec. Of 
the Class of '45, well known to the seniors in '43, Farry 
and Richey, mere boys of twenty- two, were shot dead, 
one at Monterey, the other bearing despatches. Merrill 
met his death by accident on shipboard in Aransas Bay, 
and Snelling all but died from the wounds of Molino. 
Then came the boys who were plebes when Grant and 
his fellows were First Classmen, and among these there 
M^ere two bearers of illustrious names, Alex. Rodgers, 
son of Captain George Rodgers of the navy, and nephew 
of Commodore Oliver H. Perry, and his next number in 
the class, Oliver H. P. Taylor. There was bitter sorrow 
the woeful evening of Chapultepec. The stars and 
stripes were floating in triumph over the battered walls, 

93 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

but the dead lay thick below, and among them " Sandy " 
Rodgers, only twenty-one, he who but a few days be- 
fore grieved so sadly over Eastley's death at Churu- 
busco. Taylor lived, unscathed by Mexican blade or 
bullet, only to die leading his Dragoons in Indian bat- 
tle long years later. 

These, be it remembered, are but the fatalities 
among Grant's intimates and contemporaries. The list 
of those of other classes who fell in that fateful war 
far exceeds in number those mentioned here. And there 
were others, too, commissioned from civil life, yet close 
to Grant — Captains Page and Hanson, of the Fourth 
Infantry, Sydney Smith, the wit of the regiment, whose 
merry sayings made joyous many an hour for Grant, 
and whose lamented death within the walls of Mexico 
made him a first lieutenant. 

It has been pointed out by military historians that 
in no previous war was the loss of officers, in propor- 
tion to the numbers engaged, ever so great. 

The casualties in Scott's column alone, from Cerro 
Gordo to Chapultepec speak eloquently as to this. 
Thirty-three officers had been killed and one hundred 
and seventy-nine wounded. Three hundred and fifty 
men had been killed and two thousand one hundred and 
seventy-two wounded, and all this out of a force at no 
time exceeding eight thousand men. 

And yet, it has pleased a prominent captain of in- 
dustry, in his address to the Peace Societies of St. Louis 
in April, 1913, to refer to these engagements as a series 
of mere skirmishes. It is recorded of the same speaker 
that he further declared the profession of the officer of 
the army and navy of the United States to be about the 
least hazardous occupation within the scope of his 
knowledge. The records of the great Civil War, the list 
of our fallen in Indian battle in the ten years of pro- 
found peace that followed, the number of our dead in 
Cuba and the Philippines must therefore have been un- 
worthy the financier's notice. 



CHAPTER X 

A FIGHTING QUARTERMASTER 

On the road to Monterey Grant found himself again 
in saddle, and for the first time detached from his com- 
pany in the responsible position of regimental quarter- 
master. In these days only captains, men of several 
years of experience, are selected for such duty, but in 
'46 a colonel could pitch upon any one of his subalterns 
for staff service. The two coveted offices were those of 
adjutant and quartermaster, and as a rule they fell to 
senior lieutenants. Charles Hoskins, of the class of 
'36, as has been said, now held the adjutancy, but there 
was no surprise in the Fourth when it was announced 
that " Sam " Grant was slated for the quartermaster- 
ship. 

There were reasons why the detail should have 
been a source of satisfaction. He was only three years 
out of West Point, therefore it was an unusual com- 
pliment. He was one of the outspoken opponents of 
the war itself, and therefore might have welcomed a 
berth which promised to keep him well to the rear, and 
out of the hard knocks and fighting at the front. More- 
over, his well-known gift for managing horses, it 
presently transpired, extended also to mules and even to 
men. The hired teamsters were a quarrelsome, turbu- 
lent lot; the mules lost nothing of their native propen- 
sities through daily association with such characters. 
Those were the days of the knock-down-and-drag-out 
methods of discipline. The little army of old " Rough 
and Ready " had about as many hard characters among 
its camp followers as any that ever took the field. That 
oft-mentioned array of military experts, " Our Army in 
Flanders," had no such mules as these of our Army 

95 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

in Mexico, and the rank profanity that prevailed in 
both became something more than famous in the latter. 
The roads and the language alike were something in- 
famous. It had been a creed in the quartermaster's 
department that no mule could be induced to throw his 
heart into the work except under the influence of lurid 
and resonant blasphemy. It became noised abroad by 
the time they cut loose from Camargo that the Fourth 
Foot had a new quartermaster who could ** snatch a 
six-mule team out of the worst kind of a slough with- 
out so much as a swear word." The thing was in- 
credible, yet it was true. The mild-mannered, taciturn 
young man who rode a Texas pony with such negligent 
ease, proved able to deal with hitherto intractable mule 
teams in a way no veteran could fathom. By the time 
that compact little column of regulars was trudging 
into sight of Monterey, Garland's brigade was bragging 
about the way " Sam " Grant had straightened out every 
mule and man in the train of the Fourth. His wagons 
were never stalled or sidetracked. Grant had a way of 
his own of putting them through, a way that lasted him 
throughout other years of campaigning in days that 
were to come. " He was the most popular quarter- 
master in Taylor's whole column," said an appreciative 
officer of the envious Fifth, a few years later. All this 
therefore should have made Grant reasonably content 
with his new lot. 

But Monterey and other battles proved that he was 
not, and " the most efficient quartcnnaster in the 
column " was begging to be relieved from a duty that 
kept him from sharing the fortunes of his company. 
The man who hated soldiering and detested war in 
general, and this one in particular, was demanding that 
he be allowed to quit his trains in order to take his part 
in the fight. 

Monterey brought matters to a climax. The story 
of the spirited battling about its walls has been told ten 

96 



A FIGHTING QUARTERMASTER 

thousand times over, and we have to deal only with 
Grant and his part therein. Three miles to the rear 
the trains had been parked while the battalions went 
striding into action, and presently the thunder of the 
cannon told the story of sharp and fierce encounter. It 
was too much for the quartermaster of the Fourth. 
His own regiment, beloved by this time in spite of his 
pacific tendencies, was supporting those guns some- 
where among the outlying farm enclosures toward Fort 
Teneria. Putting spurs to his horse, Grant left his 
wagons and property to the care of the teamsters and 
galloped in pursuit, joining just in time for their daring 
charge. 

Hard by the roadside and among the groups of 
wounded on the following day he found his senior staff 
officer, unhorsed and in sore trouble. Orders to be 
carried at once and not a mount to be had. " Take 
mine," said Grant, springing from saddle, " I'll find 
another," and away went Hoskins in the wake of the 
smoke-shrouded line, the last Grant ever saw of him 
alive. Hoskins fell, shot dead among the stormers, 
" You'll have to act as adjutant, too, Grant," sadly 
said their chief that night, but by that time " Sam " 
Grant was something more than a double staff officer 
in the eyes of Garland's brigade. With another day 
the whole division was telling or hearing the story. 
After hours of hard fighting, the Third and Fourth were 
close under walls that were lined with the enemy. They 
could go no further, for cartridge boxes were almost 
empty. They could not go back even if go they would, 
for the open ground was swept by the enemy's fire and 
it was death to attempt it, yet Garland called for a 
volunteer. Some one had to make the hazardous essay 
— the trip to the ammunition wagons — and that some 
one was Grant. Somehow, somewhere he had picked 
up another mount and speedily made himself master. 
Somehow he had managed to bring that horse along 
7 97 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

and had him screened behind a shoulder of wall. There 
was no question in Grant's mind as to the need of 
cartridges or the method of getting them. Silently 
he tightened the girth, quickly he mounted, headed the 
excited beast for the rear, gave him rein, lash and spur, 
and as he darted away for the white wagon tops, Grant 
flung himself out of saddle, crooking a leg about the 
cantle and clasping an arm over the neck, and thus, 
Indian fashion, at full tilt, with his horse as a shield, 
he drove through the sputter of musketry and safely 
reached the train. Within the hour Garland's brigade 
was resupplied, thanks to the daring and skill of their 
quartermaster. Within the week the story of that ex- 
ploit had gone throughout the little army, and when 
'• Sam " Grant penned his appeal for permission to re- 
join his company, Lieutenant-Colonel Garland saw fit 
to reply that his services on the stalT were too valuable 
to be spared. It led to Grant's writing about the nearest 
approach to insubordination that ever flowed from his 
pen — " I must and will accompany my company in bat- 
tle," and followed the words with the information that 
if not permitted to do so he would quit the service 
entirely. 

That exploit of Grant's should have brought him his 
first brevet, but the army had just emerged from an 
absurd squabble growing out of claims for precedence 
because of brevet rank — claims so inimical to the views 
of most of the oflScers of Taylor's command, that no 
less than one hundred and thirty signatures were at- 
tached to the appeal, written by Colonel Hitchcock and 
sent direct to the Senate. 

Loyally did his officers. West Pointers and all, stand 
by old " Rough and Ready " in this his first clash with 
his senior, Scott, and great was the wrath of the latter 
when for the second time within three years he found 
his rulings attacked by an officer so many years his 
junior. It was gall and wormwood to one of Scott's 

98 



A FIGHTING QUARTERMASTER 

imperious nature to be opposed by his subordinate, but 
" that pestilent penman," as the big, brave, but self- 
opinionated chief referred to Hitchcock, won out for 
the second time, and Taylor was sustained. 

Naturally now there was some reluctance on Tay- 
lor's part to suggest brevet rank as a reward for the 
exploits of his officers. Scott had " overworked the 
brevet business " in the past and was destined in the 
near future to overwork it again. Many an act of 
daring and devotion therefore went utterly unrewarded 
in Taylor's little army. Among the most gallant and 
distinguished of his volunteers, by the way, was no less 
a personage than Lieutenant-Colonel Hamer, Grant's 
former congressman. 

Meantime, however, even the Northwest went wild 
over the tidings of Taylor's victory, and even in its 
hour of congratulation the administration at Washing- 
ton took alarm. A Whig general was winning the 
laurels of the war devised by and for the opposite 
political party. The joy bells were ringing all over the 
land. The name of old " Rough and Ready " was on 
every lip. The stirring, soldierly, yet modest and model 
report of the battle, signed Z. Taylor, was in every 
paper and on every tongue. Every word of it, of course, 
was penned by Bliss. North and South the blufif 
frontier leader had become the personal hero and politi- 
cal probability. Something had to be done to check 
his onward sweep to undesired victories, and then it 
was that Scott received his orders to proceed in person 
to the seat of war. 

And presently he came. It was mid December when 
Scott left New Orleans for Brazos Santiago, and one 
of the first things he did — for he was fully conscious 
of enmity and intrigue at Washington — was to strengthen 
his position with the army itself by summoning to his 
staff some of its ablest officers. Scott's sagacity was 
never more apparent than when, to the amaze of Colo- 

99 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

nel Hitchcock, he sent for that " pestilent penman," 
loaded him with compliments and made him inspector- 
general at headquarters in the field. 

About the next thing done was to issue orders check- 
ing Taylor's onward move from Monterey and taking 
from him the very flower of his regulars. Unwillingly 
they marched away, our friends of the Third and 
Fourth still in Garland's brigade, and with no little 
anxiety ( for Santa Ana, with over twenty-five thousand 
men, was reported advancing on Taylor by way of 
Saltillo) they left old " Rough and Ready " to what 
many feared might be his fate. 

And their fears were prophetic, though not exactly 
as they feared. Shorn of his right arm, Worth's regu- 
lars, and having with him only the batteries of Bragg, 
Sherman and Washington, the Dragoons, and then the 
gallant regiments of volunteers, Taylor had dared to 
face the overwhelming force of the Mexican leader and 
to overthrow and soundly thrash him at Buena Vista. 
That magnetic triumph, with its catch words of "A 
little more grape, Captain Bragg" (which probably 
were never spoken) and " Tell him to go to hell : put 
that in Spanish, Bliss " (which undoubtedly were) , made 
Zachary Taylor at the very next election President of 
the United States. 

Scott, sailing for Vera Cruz and San Juan de Ulloa, 
received the news of this astonishing victory and 
realized that now the race was won. Yet a brilliant 
campaign, and a series of brilliant and stirring battles 
were destined to be his own. The siege of the old 
Mexican seaport and the reduction of its famous castle 
were swiftly followed by a successful march with 
barely eight thousand men into the very heart of the 
enemy's country. Cerro Gordo, fought in the thick of 
the mountains on the way, was a finely planned tactical 
battle, a success accomplished without storming walls 
or tragic loss of life. The Third and Fourth Infantry 

100 



A FIGHTING QUARTERAIASTER 

were still sore hearted over the heavy toll taken frorti 
their commissioned list at Alonterey, and Scott nursed 
his regulars along to the beautiful valley beyond the old 
Orizaba range, and here finally, on the high and health- 
ful tableland about Puebla, with the grand mountain 
chains to east and west in full view, with pure air and 
water and unclouded skies, he placed his little army in 
camp, awaiting the arrival from the States of the needed 
reinforcements. It was a long wait. It might have been 
a most dangerous wait, had there been unity in Mexico, 
but the populace and the army were broken by cliques 
and dissensions. They were quarrelling among them- 
selves and Scott took advantage of the situation to set 
his army to serious work in brigade and battalion drills. 
Week after week he had them out long hours each day, 
drilling, drilling, hardening and steadying, until as the 
summer waned, and the new levies finally came, he 
found himself again at the head of eight thousand men, 
most of them seasoned, disciplined, splendidly officered, 
and in spite of the few recruits and the many hard 
characters among them, ready to follow him and to fight 
like game cocks wherever he should lead. Then once 
more he launched them forward, now destined for " the 
halls of the Montezumas." 

In four fine divisions and in capital fettle, Scott's 
army resumed its march on Mexico, leaving the snow- 
capped height of Orizaba far to the rear, and the 
glistening cone of Popocatapetl to the south — the left 
flank of the column. The landscape was beautiful, the 
weather was fine, the enemy were everywhere about 
them, but nowhere too near; there was promise of stir- 
ring adventure ahead, so in buoyant spirits our friends, 
still with Worth's famous division, trudged away, 
" Sam " Grant disgustedly bringing up the rear and the 
train of the Fourth Foot. With a battery of what was 
then poetically referred to as " flying artillery " attached 
to each brigade, Duncan's renowned gunners grinning 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

in the dust of Garland's, with the Engineer officers and 
the Dragoons far in the lead, and the divisions in easy 
supporting distance in case of attack, the little army 
pressed forward through the range, and presently de- 
bouched upon the plain of Mexico. Far to. the front, 
across long sweeps of lowland dotted with glistening 
lakes, could be dimly seen the towers of the capital 
city, the centre of an encircling frame of rolling hills. 
Approaching it as they did from the southeast, until 
the head of column halted near the hamlet of Ayotla, 
the Engineers could see that the direct road was borne 
onward to the gates only along a narrow causeway 
flanked by marsh, wet meadow and then by lakes ; 
guarded, too, and squarely in their front by the rocky 
height of El Penon, strongly fortified and bristling with 
guns. Cortez and his mailed horsemen had fought their 
way against throngs of hapless natives who were armed 
only with bow and spear, but now the causeways were 
commanded by heavy cannon. Passage from the south- 
east was impossible, and the skilled and gifted guides 
of the army turned their eyes westward to where Lake 
Chalco lapped the foothills of the southward range. 
The tall, courtly, dark-eyed Virginian, bred to the 
purple, Scott's right arm among the brilliant group of 
star graduates of the Academy, riding back from the 
Ayotla front to reconnoitre the southern shores of 
Chalco, stopped to bait his horse among the wagons 
of Garland's brigade, and to exchange greeting with the 
slender, blue-eyed, plain-spoken son of the people there 
in charge. Fourteen years lay between them in date 
of graduation — the fomier was by that time a senior 
captain in the Corps of Engineers, the latter a junior 
subaltern in the marching line, yet as the two sat in 
saddle a moment later, and parted at the roadside, two 
finer horsemen were hardly to be found in all that 
array. Grant, as we know, has owned that in West 
Point days he dreamed he might succeed to the rank 



A FIGHTING QUARTERMASTER 

and title of General Scott. Did he dream that August 
morning as he gazed after the cavaHer knight of the 
army — the honored and envied engineer to whom, 
more than to any other (bar only himself), Scott at- 
tributed the victory of Vera Cruz, the triumph of 
Cerro Gordo — that the day was to come at the close 
of four years of tremendous battling when he who 
bore so gracefully the high honors of the Mexican cam- 
paign should ride again into his presence, superb even 
in utter defeat, to tender to him, the farm boy of Ohio, 
the surrender of all that was left of the proudest, 
bravest, most devoted army that ever yielded to fate and 
to superior numbers? 



CHAPTER XI 

THE SOLDIER OF SAN COSME 

Within that week, leaving but a puny force on the 
Puebla road, Scott's army was skirting the lower shores 
of Chalco, bent on forcing a way through the open 
fields, the outlying villages, farms and haciendas that 
lay to the southwest and west of the capital city. Again 
the Engineers and the escorting Dragoons were out in 
the lead. Again gallant Captain Thornton, command- 
ing here as on the Rio Grande the foremost troop, was 
reported killed, and this time unhappily it was true. 
He fell, first victim of the guns of San Antonio. 

And foremost of the divisions inarched the famous 
regulars. The Third and Fourth Infantry, long part- 
ners in camp and garrison, in march and battle, had 
suffered divorce, the former having been transferred to 
Persifer Smith's brigade of Twiggs' division, the latter, 
brigaded with the Second and Third Artillery, was 
still under its old chief. Garland. In the Second 
Brigade, Colonel Clarke's, were the Fifth, Sixth and 
Eighth Infantry, all of Worth's division. One division, 
the Third, under Major General Pillow, of the Volun- 
teers, was made up of what might be termed untried 
men, even though heralded as " regulars " — the Vol- 
igeurs, the Ninth, Eleventh, Twelfth, Fourteenth and 
Ifteenth Tnfantr}', only just organized and destined to 
xist only to the end of the war. Quitman's, the Fourth 
)ivision, except for the detachment of Marines, was 
omposed entirely of New York, Pennsylvania and 
South Carolina Volunteers, brigaded under Shields and 
Watson. 

It was on the 7th of August that the little army be- 
gan its march from Puebla. It was the loth of August 

104 



THE SOLDIER OF SAN COSME 

when it crossed the divide, eleven thousand feet above 
the sea, and began its swoop upon the capital. It was a 
week thereafter before the actual battling occurred to 
the south and west of Chalco. But now the armed forces 
of Mexico were treated to some astonishing moves and 
methods. 

They had strongly fortified the roads and approaches 
between Chalco and the westward hills. They had 
loop-holed and sandbagged the walls of San Antonio, 
as well as strengthened the rocky fortress of Contreras 
to the southwest. In the natural order of things the 
invaders should first assault the foremost line, leaving 
Contreras to be cared for later. Scott did just the 
opposite. Directing Worth's division to threaten San 
Antonio from the front, he slipped half his force under 
the cover of darkness through a new, night-built road 
his Engineers had traced around the southern flank of 
the Mexican line, and just at dawn of the 20th, in 
twenty minutes of furious fighting, they had swept over 
Contreras and were bearing down from the heights upon 
the approaches to the strongest position of all — • 
Churubusco on the southern causeway — the key to the 
city gates. 

And here followed almost at once the headiest, 
heaviest battle on the plains of Mexico, and the sorest 
of the blows received by the Mexican arms — the gen- 
eral action of Churubusco. So dazed and disorganized 
were the enemy as a result of their overthrow at this 
point, that Scott's victorious columns could have chased 
on at their heels into the heart of the capital city. 

But here again occurs a curious illustration of the 
American method of waging war under civil super- 
vision. The administration had sent to join Scott's 
army a " Commissioner," Mr. Nicholas P. Trist, a 
worthy and amiable gentleman, yet an embarrassing 
adjunct to a conquering army. He and Scott had begun 
by misunderstanding each other at Vera Cruz, and mis- 

105 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

understanding had led Mr. Trist to misrepresentation. 
The administration at Washington grieved not at all 
over the prospect of a rupture between Scott and Trist; 
very possibly it was with this hope that the commissioner 
had been sent to Mexico. Oddly enough the plans of 
the Polk cabinet miscarried here, even as they had in 
case of old " Rough and Ready." Ruptures came thick 
and fast, soon after Churubusco, and Scott was the 
vortex of the storm, but the trouble was not with Mr. 
Trist. 

Both Scott and Trist had reason to believe the 
Mexican government so rent and torn that if driven 
from its capital there would be left no recognized au- 
thority with which to settle the terms of peace. As 
these included the yielding up of every claim to Texas 
and the sale of New Mexico and California, the Mexi- 
cans speedily broke over the traces and violated the 
armistice agreed upon, and less than three weeks after 
Churubusco, the war, with new and unequalled fury, 
was on again. 

But meantime Scott had been writing despatches. 
Scott had confidence in his pen equal only to that in 
which he held his sword. Certain of his subordinates, 
too, had been writing. Scott's reports were for the 
War Department. Scott's subordinates' letters were 
for the press and personal glorification. Scott's promi- 
nent political division commander was General Gideon 
E. Pillow, and while Scott was penning pages of official 
detail as to the recent battles, Pillow was publishing 
long columns claiming to himself the honors of the 
move to the south of Chalco, and for himself and 
Worth the salvation of Scott's army. 

Nowhere near as desperate or deadly as either 
Monterey or Buena Vista, Scott had crowned Contrcras 
and Churubusco with a halo of martial glory, and 
whole sheafs and pale ways of brevets. Gallant and 
meritorious indeed were the services of his officers in 

io6 



THE SOLDIER OF SAN COSME 

these two stirring affairs, but Contreras, with a total 
loss of only sixty, was won in a single whirlwind charge, 
and the Churubusco battle was a series of attacks along 
the hostile front, while with one brigade he took the 
enemy in flank. Resistance seemed vain, and with 
fewer casualties among his officers, as compared with 
those of Taylor in his two great battles, Scott had 
rushed the enemy off their feet. Then, exulting in such 
success, he sought to lavish reward and honor on the 
gallant men who had led his battalions and companies. 
Of Taylor's West Pointers brevetted, there were 
twenty-five for Palo Alto and Resaca, forty for 
Monterey, and thirty for Buena Vista — many of 
these, like Charles F. Smith, McCall, Duncan, Bragg, 
J. F. Reynolds, George H. Thomas, coming in for two 
apiece. No man could say that Taylor's recommenda- 
tions were not in any case deserved, but when Scott's 
list for Contreras and Churubusco burst upon the army 
comments were, to say the least, satirical. The forty 
odd West Pointers named for Cerro Gordo had been 
accepted in all good faith. In nearly every instance, 
said their fellows of the staff and line, the recommenda- 
tion was well merited. 

But when on top of this there came a roster of no 
less than one hundred and twenty West Pointers 
brevetted for gallant and meritorious conduct at Con- 
treras and Churubusco — fights in which but seven of 
their number had been killed (Bacon, Burke, Capron, 
Anderson, Irons, Johnstone and Easley) — the graduates 
took alarm. It was a case of " running the thing into 
the ground." Phelps of the Class of '36, and Hawes 
of '45, begged to be excused and respectfully declined, 
while Grant of '43, on being told that he, in connection 
with a certain other subaltern, had been recommended 
in the same letter of a regimental commander, very 
promptly and indignantly protested: "If that man's 

107 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

entitled to a brevet I am not," is the way one of his 
biographers tells it. 

And yet, for the desperate assaults so soon to follow 
at Molino and Chapultepec, Scott's lists were reduced 
by much more than half, while his casualty lists were 
very much more than doubled, so far at least as his 
West Pointers were concerned. It is melancholy to 
think that, when showered so liberally on the just and 
the unjust, there were yet heroic souls that took their 
flight, after noble leadership on many a field, unhonored 
by a single brevet. Of such were J. W. yVnderson, 
Dunn, McKavett, Martin Burke and Capron ; of such 
were the first William Montrose Graham, of the old 
I'^ourth Infantry, dying at Molino commanding the 
I-llevcnth Infantry, and Merrill heading the stormers 
of the Fifth; of such were Bacon, Burbank, Burwell, 
Daniels, Easley, Ernst, Farry, Gantt, R. II. Graham, 
and so on down a list that, coui)led with the names of 
those who died brcvetted, might well challenge the 
statements of the gentlemen who so lately spoke in 
sneering terms of the trivial skirmishes of our war with 
Mexico, and of the profession of arms as practised by 
officers of the United States. 

Long before the Churubusco shower reached 
Washington, however, there had been fighting such as 
Mexico had never seen or heard of, and deeds of dar- 
ing that thrilled even our surfeited press. Yet so 
many a glad young life was snuffed out, so many a 
brilliant name was stricken from the rolls, that mourn- 
ing was as widespread as triumph over the tidings of 
Molino, Chapultepec and the gates of Mexico. 

In these assaults it transpired that our young 
quartermaster again left his legitimate duties, with his 
wagons, far in rear, and turned up just as far in front, 
bearing a manful hand at Molino and covering himself 
with credit as an amateur artillerist at the San Cosme 
gate. And yet, as he declares in his Memoirs, Molino 

1 08 



THE SOLDIER OF SAN COSME 

was a sad mistake, a totally unnecessary battle, and he 
who clambered to the low roof of one of the outbuild- 
ings, and secured as prisoners a Mexican officer of rank, 
with a dozen followers at his back (winning thereby a 
brevet he would not decline), insisted always that 
Molino could have been " turned " instead of taken at 
fearful cost, and that Chapultepec need never have been 
stormed at all. 

Scott in his autobiography asserts that from the 
walls of Tacubaya, looking northeastward, they saw 
before the armistice was closed, strong columns of the 
enemy taking up position at the old " King's Mills " — 
los Molinos del Rey, where a long, low, foundry-like 
building had been heavily fortified, where its neighbor, 
the Casa Mata, was reported crammed with ammunition, 
and whither the very church bells were being carted to 
be cast into cannon to replace the many captured by 
the hated Yankees. Scott's line by this time, too, in- 
cluded Tacubaya, four miles out, and when sudden end 
came to the armistice of nearly eighteen days. Worth's 
division was nearest Molino, and to Worth, with only 
three thousand two hundred and fifty men, was in- 
trusted the reduction of that improvised fortress. 

The guns of the citadel at Chapultepec to the north- 
east had a plunging fire upon the approaches to the old 
mills; the walls and buildings were crainmed with in- 
fantry, far outnumbering the assaulting column, but 
Worth sent them in, and for hours the battle raged, 
hand to hand, as did the savage fighting of the Guards- 
men of England and the flower of the French Infantry 
about the walls of Hougomont. Here died Ransom, 
colonel of the Ninth; here died Graham, commanding 
the Eleventh ; here fell Kirby Smith, Shackelford, 
Daniels, Armstrong, Ayers, Burbank, Ernst, Morris, 
Strong, Burwell and Farry, shot dead or speedily dying 
of their wounds. Here was freely shed the blood of 
many another of the gallant band of graduates, George 

109 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Wright and Francis Lee (major commanding Grant's 
regiment), Anderson and Montgomery, Cady, Talcott 
and Price, Larkin Smith, Mason, Walker, RuiT and 
Henry J. Hunt (lie who was to be our great chief 
artillerist at Gettysburg), C. S. Hamilton and " Ruddy " 
Clarke, Grant's classmates, George Andrews, Lincoln, 
Foster and Snelling. young and enthusiastic subalterns 
they, and all these, be it remembered, out of only three 
thousand men engaged — all these being but the larger 
portion of the killed and wounded among the officers, 
for only the West Pointers here are named. Molino, 
in proportion to the numbers engaged, was the deadliest 
battle of the Mexican war. Chapultepec, carried by 
storm only two days later (and celebrated to this day 
as a glorious victory by many a credulous Mexican), 
was far less costly in life and limb, though it was there 
young Gantt and " Sandy " Rodgers laid down their 
lives, and Lee, Longstreet, Mackall, Tower, Page and 
Innis Palmer were stung by hostile lead. 

It was on the San Cosme road and causeway that 
" Sam " Grant, of the Fourth, reached the height of 
his early fame. Along the two causeways now the 
Americans were fighting their way to the city walls, 
Worth's division heading the advance on the San Cosme 
and Quitman on the Belen gate. With the very fore- 
most of Worth's pioneers went the quartermaster, who 
officially belonged to the hindmost. The arches of the 
aqueduct gave partial shelter until they reached the 
junction with the east and west road, and here the aque- 
duct turned ; here cannon and musketry both blocked 
the way, and here the common sense of the quarter- 
master came into play. A walled enclosure abutted on 
both roads in the southeast angle. Grant managed to 
reach it. and presently had led a little detachment under 
shelter of the walls to a point on the eastward cause- 
way, beyond the guns and the main body of the de- 
fense, a piece of Yankee enterprise and effrontery that 

no 



THE SOLDIER OF SAN COSME 

proved too much for Mexican nerve, and opened the 
onward way to the gates. 

And here again was a stiff and stubborn fight, and 
here again common sense and the quartermaster be- 
came prominent factors in the victory that followed. 
The Mexican guns at the gateway and musketry on 
the walls swept the causeway far out to the west. To 
right and left of it were wet ditches, marshy ponds and 
but little solid ground, yet on such ground there was to 
the south of the road a stone church and convent, and 
thither Grant managed to make his way, clambered to 
the belfry, and there under his eyes and but a few 
hundred yards distant, were the guns of the San Cosme 
and their defenders. Sheltered from the direct aim of 
his comrades along the causeway and sweeping it with 
every discharge, the Mexican defenders were exposed 
to a raking gunfire — if only he had the gun. 

As luck would have it, a mountain howitzer had 
been brought along by the Voltigeurs, and it was some- 
where back among the archways of the aqueduct. 
Hastening thither and asking no authority, Grant 
pointed out the church to the gunners, told them of the 
splendid chance it gave and offered to lead them on, 
and on they went, over hedges and ditches, dragging 
their little "boomer" with them. Then up the steep 
and tortuous stairway, with prodigious energy they 
boosted their gun and hoisted shell and cartridges, and 
then suddenly from that isolated belfry there burst 
a challenge of flash and flame and the loud bellow of 
the howitzer, and all Worth's division saw with de- 
light that some one had had the "horse sense" to 
reach out and seize that commanding perch, and was 
pouring death and destruction among the defenders at 
San Cosme Gate. Rejoicefully Worth sent his aide- 
de-camp, Pemberton, to find the ofiicer who headed that 
enterprise and fetch him to the presence of the division 
commander, and so the future defender of Vicksburg 

III 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

poked his head up into the fire-spitting, smoke-shrouded, 
ecclesiastical gun platfomi and asked who was doing 
all this, and his future conqueror, all dust and grime, 
had no time to answer questions until told the general 
wished to see him and personally thank him. Bloody 
fighting they were having over at the Bclen Gate, as 
many a gallant officer had found to his cost. There 
Drum and Benjamin lay dead, and Beauregard. 
Brannan, Lyon, Lovell, Van Dom and Fitz John Porter 
were bleeding from their wounds ; but here at San 
Cosme Sam Grant's sacerdotal howitzer had blazed 
the way for his war-worn comrades, and, sweeping the 
defenders from the guns, had enabled the storming 
column to reach the walls. 

" Splendidly done, sir! " was the compliment he re- 
ceived from his division general, and no less than three 
commanders by name referred to him in their official 
reports. Frank Lee, major commanding the Fourth, 
wrote of Lieutenant Grant that he had borne himself 
with " distinguished gallantry," wliiic his old chief, Gar- 
land, still heading the brigade, recommended him for 
official notice and reward for " acquitting himself most 
nobly on several occasions." No subaltern in all the 
line had won higher praise or more of it. His brevet 
of captain, while still a second lieutenant, dates from 
this 13th of September, " for gallant conduct at Cha- 
pultepec," as the general engagement was named. 

In two years now, so swiftly came the casualties of 
the Mexican war, he had risen from the foot to the head 
of the list of second lieutenants of the Fourth Infantry, 
and here and within the compass of another day came, 
still further advancement. Such determined valor as 
shown by the storming columns had proved too much 
for the ^lexican chieftain, Santa Ana. With the 
" Gringos " thundering at both the Belen and San Cosme 
Gates, he that night turned loose the convicts and des- 
peradoes in the city prisons, left them arms and am- 

112 



THE SOLDIER OF SAN COSME 

munition with which to pour desultory fire from house- 
tops and windows when the invaders burst their in- 
evitable way, and, gathering his chosen about him, 
slipped northward out of the city. Next morning when 
the leaders of the Fourth Infantry broke cheering 
through the portal of San Cosme and swarmed into the 
city streets, one of the first to fall, stricken down by the 
bullet of a felon, was Sydney Smith, who, dying, made 
his mourning and admiring friend a first lieutenant. 

It was Grant's last battle for many a day. 

That winter was spent in and about the city of 
Mexico, recuperating, making themselves acquainted 
with the country, and reading the tremendous tales in 
the papers of their prowess in the field ; but the tales 
told of and by General Pillow and certain of his fol- 
lowers eclipsed all others. They ignored the command- 
ing general ; they exalted beyond all measure the ser- 
vices of Pillow's division; and they brought about a 
lamentable breach between brave and brilliant Scott 
and two of the bravest and most brilliant of his sub- 
ordinates, erstwhile devoted followers and friends — 
Worth, commander of the famous and hard-fighting 
First Division, and Duncan, the " lightning " com- 
mander of their famous battery. It was something 
Grant never forgot. It was something he had in mind 
when, after his own brilliant campaign in central Mis- 
sissippi, one of his corps commanders took to publish- 
ing, even as had Pillow in '47, and it led to prompt and 
summary action, as will later be seen. But Scott in 
'47 had no friendly and grateful administration behind 
him as had Grant in '63. 

Worth had been Scott's aide-de-camp in days gone 
by, and loved him. Worth had at first been Scott's 
most admired division commander. Even at Churu- 
busco he had praised him as daring and skilful, and at 
Molino had given him the post of honor; but an envious 
soul had sought to break up that time-tried comrade- 
? 113 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

ship, and had succeeded. Scott had become suspicious 
and Worth estranged. Duncan had sided with his di- 
vision chief, and the army looked sorrowfully on as the 
breach widened and the war of words and recrimination 
waged. Exasperated at length, Scott had ordered 
Worth, Pillow and Duncan in arrest, and the answer of 
the administration was the promotion of Duncan to be 
colonel and inspector general of the army ; and, with the 
order for a court in the case of the accused officers, there 
came from Washington as the final reward of his bril- 
liant services, the order for a court of inquiry on Scott 
himself. 

But before this melancholy close had come to his 
brilliant campaign and career in Mexico, Scott had 
figured in many a dramatic scene — his spectacular entry 
into the capital city was one ; his memorable dinner in 
honor of General Twiggs was another. Twiggs was to 
take command at Vera Cruz, and on the eve of his de- 
parture Scott feasted him at a banquet attended by 
Commissioner Trist, by several prominent civilian resi- 
dents, British and others, and by Generals Twiggs, 
Persifer Smith, Franklin Pierce and Caleb Gushing, 
and by half a dozen officers of high rank, of whom only 
two were graduates of West Point. Scott wished to 
spare their blushes, he said, for it was on this occasion 
he toasted the Military' Academy of the nation and 
paid to its cVcves a remarkable tribute : " But for the 
science of West Point," said he, " this army, multiplied 
by four, could not have entered the capital of Mexico." 

Still later, testifying before a congressional com- 
mittee, Scott said as follows: 

" I give it as my fixed opinion that but for our graduated 
cadets, the war between the United States and Mexico would 
have lasted four or five years, with, in its first half, more 
defeats than victories falling to our share, whereas, in less 
than two campaigns we conquered a great country and a peace 
without the loss of a single battle or a skirmish." 

114 



THE SOLDIER OF SAN COSME 

And of these graduated cadets, as the winter wore 
on, by common consent among the survivors, there was 
no junior in the entire array who had acquitted himself 
with higher credit, or had rendered more valiant or 
valuable services, than the very modest and mild- 
mannered young quartermaster of the Fourth Infantry, 
not yet four years out of the leading strings of West 
Point, and yet widely known among the little army of 
exiles at the capital city as " Old Sam Grant." And 
all of this was soon to be forgotten, and in spite of all 
this it is of ten declared that Grant had never been heard 
of before the war for the preservation of the Union. 



CHAPTER XII 
PEACE— THE PACIFIC COAST AND TROUBLE 

The T. I, O. of cadet days had by this time become 
widely scattered. But presently there grew up within 
the walls of Mexico an association of officers that 
lived long famous in the annals of the army. Created 
by graduates of West Point, it was planned to include 
in its membership many a gallant and worthy officer of 
volunteers, and the very first president elected by the 
" Aztecs " was the commanding general of the Second 
Brigade of the Third, Pillow's, Division, Franklin 
Pierce, of New Hampshire — he who was to defeat 
Scott for the presidency in the fall of 1854, and to be 
lampooned from one end of the Union to the other, 
after the manner of our press and politicians, as a con 
temptible coward. That he should have been chosen 
by the almost unanimous vote of his brother officers, 
most of them regulars, to be the first president of that 
exclusive body, the " Aztecs," is sufficient in itself to 
refute the charge that he was hiding in the ditches at 
the rear while his men were fighting at the front. The 
few months that elapsed before the recall of General 
Scott had given the little army opportunity to sift the 
truth out of most of the stories in circulation, and the 
difTerence between the accounts brought home by the 
earliest returning warriors, and those which became the 
standard versions among the " Aztecs," the stay-it- 
through soldiers, was a curious and interesting study. 
Many a reputation that went up like a rocket in the fall 
of '47, came down like a stick with the final returns. 
But one thing the campaign had proved beyond perad- 
venture, and that was the fighting power of the young 
West Pointers, fifty of whom had been killed and eighty- 

116 



PEACE— THE PACIFIC COAST AND TROUBLE 

seven wounded in battle, the classes nearest Grant being 
by far the heaviest losers. 

And while studying these statistics of that un- 
righteous war with Mexico, it may be well to record 
this fact: In point of numbers actually engaged there 
was never a fight of any consequence in which the 
Mexican force did not far outnumber the Americans, 
usually three or four to one, but Mexican leadership 
from first to last was wretched. They lost to a fighting 
force that at no time exceeded eight thousand men, no 
less than forty thousand taken prisoners, a thousand 
cannon, and ten fortified positions carried by siege or 
assault. As the entire army of the United States con- 
tained at that time no more than five hundred graduates 
of West Point, it may reasonably be conceded that there 
was glory enough to go round and leave abundance to 
be shared by their comrades the volunteers. Surely 
Baker's men at Cerro Gordo, under the lead of that 
heroic figure, the earlier friend and " statesman " of 
Abraham Lincon, the later gifted orator of the Pacific 
coast and of the Senate of the United States, the soldier 
sacrifice of Ball's Bluff, had won a place in history. 
Surely the flank attack of Shields, another famous 
volunteer from Illinois, had vastly helped to turn the 
tide at Churubusco. Surely the Mississippians at Buena 
Vista had won old Rough and Ready's hearty praise, 
and more than that, his final forgiveness of that un- 
desired, but most gallant, son-in-law, their wounded 
West Point colonel, Jefferson Davis. Surely the Ken- 
tuckians at Buena Vista, after losing in succession 
their heroic leaders, McKee and Henry Clay, colonel and 
lieutenant-colonel respectively, and West Pointers both 
of high renown — surely these had won a name the nation 
never yet has forgotten and never will forget, so long 
as men read, and hearts thrill over the glowing words 
of Theodore O'Hara : 

117 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground, 

Ye must not slumber there, 
Where stranger steps and tongues resound 

Along the heedless air. 
Your own proud land's heroic soil 

Shall be your fitter grave. 
She claims from war his richest spoil — 

The ashes of her brave. 

But after all the fighting came the lull of inaction 
and the letters and papers from home, and then dissen- 
sions among the chiefs and discussions among the 
juniors, the wiser heads avoiding both. During the fall 
and winter months that followed the final victory many 
and various were the methods resorted to for killing 
time. Cards, drills, dances and dinners were the main 
devices, though we hear of an occasional cock fight and 
even a semi-occasional bull fight gotten up by the natives 
for the lucre, not the love, of the hated invader. For 
none of these had " Sam " Grant any liking whatever. 
The cock and the bull fights he would not attend. Many 
of the oflScers took to learning Spanish. The methods 
were alluring and many of the teachers charming, but 
for Spanish Grant felt as much aversion as he earlier 
had for French, and as for the teachers, they lured 
liiin not at all. 

In those months of rest and relaxation there was 
active employment for the staff, and Grant had his 
hands full. His duty it was to provide for the needs 
of the inner as well as the outer man. There were no 
regimental commissaries in those days ; this function 
devolved upon the quartermaster, and in the perform- 
ance of these duties Grant very successfully ran a 
military bakery which produced bread of excellent 
quality at moderate price, and declared a dividend in 
favor of the Fourth. He made peaceful forays into 
the interior, and brought home food, fruits, forage, all 
much appreciated, both by man and beast. He had few 

ii8 



1 ::^ -x^^ " 




ULYSSES S. GRANT 
While Lieutenant 4th Infantry 
The photORraph from which this was taken 
distinctly shows captain shoulder straps under the 
epaulettes. It must have been taken just after the 
Mexican War, at the time of his marriage in 1848 — 
when he was brevet captain. 

rimn -r.rani s Life in llie West antl Ins Misslssipi.i CanipaiRn '• 
l,y O.I.John W. limeison.puMKhed HMhe AfuJ/ami AUnrfi.y. 
liy kindness of G. P. I'utnani s Sons 



PEACE— THE PACIFIC COAST AND TROUBLE 

books to read, but there were frequent letters now, long 
ones, that seemed to give him infinite satisfaction, and 
to require long hours of semi-seclusion for absorption 
and for reply. 

And yet his old comrades tell of him that he was far 
from being reserved or solitary then. He seemed to 
enjoy the fun and chaff and chatter after mess, only it 
was his way to listen rather than to talk. His keen 
eyes, twinkling with fun and appreciation, would glance 
from speaker to speaker, " taking them all in and sizing 
them up," as once said a veteran of the " Aztecs," to the 
end that as the springtime came on, and the treaty of 
peace at Guadalupe Hidalgo, it would seem that Grant 
had made a rather accurate mental estimate of the 
character and capacity of most of his messmates and 
many a man in other commands. There was to come 
a time when such knowledge would prove of infinite 
value to him and, through him, to the nation. 

They made an excursion to Popocatapetl, too, and 
had a trying experience, with no little temporary sufifer- 
ing, but after all they were glad, without exception, 
when the dolce far niente days about the capital were 
ended and the army on the march for home. Grant 
had saved a little money from his salary, for expenses 
were not high in the land of mafiana. Peace with honor 
had come, and he was being hailed by the Fourth as 
Captain Grant, in spite of the fact that the Senate was 
unaccountably " holding up " some brevet nominations, 
even while lavishly confirming others. The home folk 
were all eager to see and welcome him at Georgetown, 
but out at White Flaven, on the Gravois road south- 
west of St. Louis, there was waiting a girl who was 
prouder of that Monterey-Molino and San Cosme 
record, and of those two brevets, than were even the 
gentle mother and sisters at home. Julia Dent had a 
brother in the army and knew something about such 
things, but Grant, the father, Jesse Root of Brown 

IIQ 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

County, looked only with pragmatical eyes upon the 
reward for services rendered. What were brevets of 
first lieutenant and captain if they brought with them 
no extra pay with which to purchase captains' 
shoulder-straps and epaulets — the only tangible tokens 
of the honors the son had received? 

But meantime, on the homeward way, misfortune 
had come to Grant. 

Just before the march began, while still at Tacubaya, 
our quartermaster found himself with something over 
a thousand dollars of government funds which had to 
be taken along and for which he had no safe. Exactly 
one thousand dollars, therefore, was placed in the trunk 
of Captain Gore, as secure a receptacle as any one could 
suggest, and ten nights thereafter that tnmk was skil- 
fully taken from the little tent in which Captain Gore 
and his young lieutenant, John de Russy, were soundly 
sleeping. A board of officers convened at Jalapa and 
exonerated Grant of all blame or responsibility, but 
Uncle Sam is a relentless creditor in such matters. 
The Treasury Department held it up against the help- 
less officer, pending the remote passage of an act of 
Congress for his relief, and for years that possible stop- 
page against his pitiably small stipend hung ever above 
him. That, too, was to augment his worries in the near 
future, but for the time being, supposing official ex- 
oneration all sufficient, he lived in roseate hope and 
anticipation. 

A luckier regiment was sent to occupy the Fourth's 
old quarters at Jefferson Barracks ; but, along in the 
early summer, looking somewhat tanned and a trifle 
older, the young soldier suitor reappeared at White 
Haven, and a quiet little ceremony was presently en- 
acted, attended by several cherished comrades of the 
war days, notably Cadmus Wilcox and that tall Eighth 
Infantryman Longstreet. There was a brief and modest 
hone}moon, and then along in the autumn the young 

120 



PEACE— THE PACIFIC COAST AND TROUBLE 

couple journeyed to Sackett Harbor, New York, and 
regimental duty was resumed. The old Fourth by that 
time was scattered among the few stations along the 
great lakes — mainly at Fort Wayne, just below Detroit, 
at Sackett Harbor and Mackinac. 

But the Fourth was changing. Major Lee was no 
longer in command, and presently, in May, '49, Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel Bonneville, a comparative stranger to 
them and to their traditions, joined and assumed com- 
mand. The quartermastership had been resigned about 
the time of the marriage, and Grant did company duty 
for a while, cheerily enough, for the young bride was 
there to tie his sash and buckle the belt more trimly, and 
persuade him, long accustomed to the laxities of bear- 
ing and dress permitted in storeroom and corral, to pay 
more attention to his military appearance. Though 
neat as a new pin, Grant hated the black stock and 
snugly buttoned frock. It was not long, however, be- 
fore the quartermaster pro tern found other and more 
attractive duty, and regimental sentiment recalled 
" Sam " Grant. Colonel Bonneville, already aging 
(graduate of the Class of 1815), was twenty-eight 
years Grant's senior in the service. He had other views 
as to that vacancy, but so strong was regimental feeling 
in the matter that he decided it unwise to oppose it. 
Grant was again, in September, '49, called to the office, 
and for four more years uninterruptedly and most 
creditably performed its manifold duties, but during 
those four years marked and memorable events oc- 
curred, and the high content with which he resumed 
duty as quartermaster, and the happiness the army home 
life now afforded him, were destined to suffer serious 
relapse. 

The Mexican war ended, and all hope of promotion 
blocked by the opening of the year 1850, a period of 
semi-stagnation fell upon the ser\'ice, in the midst of 
which, in '52, the government decided on sending more 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

troops to the recently acquired territory on the Pacific 
coast. The gold excitement in California had led to 
rapid increase of population there. The Indians in 
Oregon were giving trouble, and, as luck would have 
it, the old Fourth were ordered to leave their cosy, 
homelike stations along the lakes, bid farewell to civiliza- 
tion, and prepare for duty in an untrodden wilderness. 
The blow came upon the Grants when their first-bom, 
named for his gallant Uncle Fred (Frederick Dent), 
was just beginning to toddle about and tumble into mis- 
chief. There were now other reasons why it would have 
been a grievous hardship for that young wife and mother 
to attempt the long, trying trip by sea, to the far-away 
shores of the Pacific. There was again aroused in 
Grant the desire to quit the army as so many of his 
West Point comrades were doing, most of them for 
fairly lucrative positions in civil life. Barely four years 
after their happy wedding Grant bowed to what he 
considered the inevitable, and decided to leave his wife 
and son to the care of the Dents at St. Louis, to ac- 
company his regiment and see the marvellous new El 
Dorado within the Golden Gate, when possibly at San 
Francisco he might find the very opportunity he sought, 
but if not, surely where so many others had succeeded 
in obtaining professorships or engineering work in " the 
States," the chances were that he, too, could do so. The 
mails were burdened with his letters to all manner of 
men who had quit soldiering for civil pursuits. The.e 
were Gilham and Johnson, of the Class of 1840, both 
established as professors, the one at the Virginia Mili- 
tary Institute, the other in that of West Kentucky. 
There were Whiting and Tilden, of the same class, both 
teaching for a living. There was Sears of '41, already 
professor of mathematics at the University of Louisi- 
ana. There were Stewart, of '42, professor of mathe- 
matics at Cumberland University. Tennessee; Hill at 
Washington College, Lexington, Virginia, and William- 



PEACE— THE PACIFIC COAST AND TROUBLE 

son at the Kentucky Military Institute. Quinby of his 
own class, their crack mathematician, had just resigned 
and taken a professorship at Rochester University, New 
York, and there were Curd and Read of '44, both pro- 
fessors of mathematics or science. There were a dozen 
others, Fahnestock, Hammond, Darne, Johnstone, 
Robertson, Story and Hebert, all reported doing well 
as planters or farmers. There were McCalmont and 
Collins in the law ; Gill and Thomas in railway engineer- 
ing. There was that odd genius of the plebe class 
when Grant was a senior, Thomas J. Jackson, of Vir- 
ginia; he, too, had just taken a professorship at the 
Virginia Military Institute. Then Deshon, his room- 
mate at one time, had resigned after eight years of 
ordnance duty, and was seeking holy orders. Then there 
was Gouts, after years in the dragoons and Lower 
California, who resigned to become a ranchero. If all 
these men whom he well knew, and so many more of 
whom he had only heard, could so readily establish them- 
selves in civil pursuits, surely he, too, could find some- 
thing better for himself, for his young wife and that 
burly baby boy than the one-room-and-a-kitchen-with- 
less-than-a-thousand-a-year, which was the best the 
Army could promise him for a decade or more to come. 
It would seem that right here and now the prospering 
father might have borne a hand. The best, however, 
that Jesse had to offer, if anything, was the tanner)^ 
again, and it all ended as it had in '45, with Grant's 
going with his regiment, and for a second time, and 
under far more trying and touching circumstances, with 
his heart yearning over " the girl I left behind me." 
For once in his life, if not oftener, he thanked his stars 
he could not tell one tune from another, or in spite of 
his manhood his eyes might well have brimmed over 
when the fifes and drums of the Fourth struck up the 
soldier lay to which for half a century, at least, 
wherever " England's martial drumbeat, companion of 

123 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

the hours " had girdled the globe, her men-at-arms and 
those of her independent daughter Columbia, had 
marched away to other fields, leaving weeping wives and 
maids at home. 

A solemn journey was that to the Pacific. A 
crowded, side-wheel steamer took the eight companies, 
men, women and children, in the very season of all 
others when they should not have been sent there, mid- 
summer, to the Isthmus of Panama. From Aspinwall 
they could be tnmdled on the new railway as far as the 
banks of the Chagres River; then they had to be poled 
or pulled in small boats up stream to Gorgona ; then came 
twenty-five miles " mule back or marching " across the 
range to Panama and the Pacific. 

Bonneville and the troops marched away from 
Gorgona in comparative comfort, leaving the quarter- 
master to look after the many wives and children of the 
soldiery, all the regimental baggage, the sick and broken 
down, the skulkers and stragglers. It is no trick to ride 
away at the head of a regular regiment for a march 
of twenty or thirty miles, but the labors of Hercules 
were light in comparison with the burden of respon- 
sibility and care the colonel shunted on the shoulders of 
Grant. It was that summer they began to stoop. 

They were all to follow " by contract " from Cruces, 
but the contractor could not begin to fill the bill, he had 
not mules enough by half. They were marooned, a 
colony of fretful women and cr)'ing children, in the 
pestilential thickets of the Chagres fully a week, wait- 
ing for the new contractor Grant had found, and in the 
midst of it all and of their enforced camp, there came 
that dreaded foe, the cholera. 

One company had been left to guard them from 
marauders or plunderers, but the coming of the plague, 
from which no human force could then defend them, 
made other guards unnecessar)-. Grant ordered that 
company forthwith to rejoin the regiment. Then with 

124 



PEACE— THE PACIFIC COAST AND TROUBLE 

his little band of helpers reduced to the married soldiers, 
"he gathered up his stricken caravan and started on the 
slow and mournful march to the coast. Barely twenty 
miles had he to cover, but by the time he turned over 
his charge to the officials at Panama, one-third of his 
number had succumbed to cholera and had been buried 
either at Cruces or along the way. No wonder " Old 
Sam " Grant seemed aging more rapidly than his 
fellows. 

When at last the voyage to San Francisco could be 
resumed, some three weeks later, Grant was looking ten 
years older. The regiment was rallying about him more 
cordially than ever; company officers and men all 
seemed to swear by him,but Major Lee,his stanch friend, 
had been promoted out to the lieutenant-colonelcy of 
the Sixth. The new major fell in with the lieutenant- 
colonel commanding, and with a captain or two, men 
who had served with other commands at Vera Cruz and 
the march to Mexico ; and so it happened that officers 
who had borne the heat and burden of the day and had 
fought and bled and shared every peril with the Fourth, 
although largely in the majority, were not the men in 
authority — the men in highest rank and in control. 
These were considerations destined deeply to affect the 
fortunes of the man the regiment all the more stoutly 
supported in the quartermastership, and, unconsciously, 
perhaps, added to the latent antagonism existing in the 
mind of the lieutenant-colonel commanding, and by him 
(is it an unfair inference?) communicated to his own 
especial associates, the major, and a senior captain des- 
tined presently to be detailed to important and sig- 
nificant commands. 

A brief while the regiment tarried at Benicia, and 
then was shipped up the coast to the Columbia, where 
headquarters were established at Columbia Barracks, 
now Fort Vancouver, with two companies detached to 
a lonely station at Humboldt Bay to the south. The 

125 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

command of the district of Northern California was 
presently given to the major, George Wright. The 
command of the little isolated post of Fort Humboldt 
had fallen to that senior captain and veteran soldier, 
Robert C. Buchanan. Meantime for a year Grant con- 
tinued his duties as regimental quartermaster at 
Columbia Barracks, a year filled with cares, anxieties 
and yearnings that no one fully understood, since he so 
rarely spoke of them, and that withdrew him little by 
little from the cheery companionship of his fellows. 

To begin with, there had come, even as he was fight- 
ing cholera on the Isthmus, a second baby boy, and the 
reason why so devoted a husband as Grant could leave 
his wife behind was more easily understood. But these 
hostages to fortune involved care and cost and respon- 
sibility in proportion to the numbers, and Grant had 
other cares. That confounded thousand-dollar loss at 
I'uebla had been a sore distress. There were men at 
Sackett Harbor with whom he had business relations in 
bygone days, who owed him money in considerable sums 
but, now that he was long months and miles away, 
ignored his claims. He had embarked in some Httle 
enterprises about Vancouver which he hoped might add 
a few dollars to his pay, and they were doing just the 
reverse. He was becoming more and more silent and 
obviously sad, and presently it became known to many 
an officer that " Sam " Grant was beginning to drink 
more than was good for him. 

He who had been so free from vice of any and 
every kind, was yielding to a not uncommon weakness, 
probably because in his loneliness and longing it seemed 
to bring him temporary surcease from pain. As regi- 
mental quartermaster, and temporarily on a bachelor 
status, he had more room in his quarters than other 
comrades, and visiting officers, as a consequence, be- 
came his charge and guests. Coming and going all 
the time these were many. Coming and staying for 

126 



PEACE— THE PACIFIC COAST AND TROUBLE 

several weeks was George B. McClellan, of the Engi- 
neers, with whom Grant had served in happier days in 
Mexico, and McClellan noted with concern the occa- 
sional over-indulgence of his host — the First Classman 
who had been so cheery and kind to him when he was 
a " plebe." All this was to have its weight in days to 
come. 

It was not that Grant drank much, as explained by 
his most devoted friends. The trouble was that a very 
little would flush that fair complexion of his and thicken 
his never glib or lively tongue. On far less liquor than 
many a comrade carried without a sign. Grant would 
appear half stupefied. At Columbia Barracks, with no 
guard, drills or parade duties to attend, with practically 
no one to supervise (for the quartermaster had scant 
occasion to appear before the colonel), the matter at- 
tracted no official notice. Then one day came the news 
that " Perfect " Bliss had passed away, and that his 
company, long commanded by its first lieutenant, and 
now stationed at F'ort Humboldt, would have a new cap- 
tain and commander — that after years of ser\'ice as 
quartermaster, and away from all the starch and buck- 
ram, pomp and circumstance, fuss and feathers of mili- 
tary life. Captain Grant was to step at once into the 
presence of a soldier of the old school — a commander 
in every sense of the word, " the martinet of the army " 
some went so far as to call one of the most thorough 
gentlemen and admirable officers that ever wore our 
uniform — Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel Robert C. Buch- 
anan, then Captain Fourth Infantry, commanding the 
little post at Humboldt Bay. 

There are three versions of the trouble that speedily 
followed. In order to reach the new post Grant had 
first to go away down the coast to San Francisco, and 
there take a coastwise vessel north again. His new 
commission was dated July 5th, but it was September 
before he could transfer all funds, papers and property 

127 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

to his successor, John Withers, of Mississippi. It was 
later when he reached San Francisco, and as coasters 
were few, and dependent on wind and tide, it was much 
later when he finally reached Fort Humboldt, and 
Buchanan took umbrage at that to begin with. Then 
Buchanan was a man who in every look and step and 
gesture was the precise and punctilious soldier. His 
uniform fitted him like a glove; his equipments were 
always spick and span. When he spoke to a senior in 
rank, his heels clicked together and he stood at salute, 
and so he expected the juniors should stand before him. 
It was the writer's privilege to serve in subaltern days 
under that gifted soldier's command, to hold him in ad- 
miration and esteem unbounded. The daily " matinee" 
at which Buchanan, then Colonel of the First Infantry, 
assembled all the officers in garrison, and the prompt 
dressing down he administered to any officer who pre- 
sumed to pick up a newspaper, who dared to yawn, or 
who had the hardihood to glance out of the nearest 
window, were admirable in their effect upon the laggard 
or the slouchy among his subordinates. And all these 
traits he had as commander at Fort Humboldt, and 
this was the man whom Grant had now to serve. 
Between two soldiers of such variant types there was no 
possibility of sympathy. Buchanan had no tolerance for 
weakness of any kind. The deeds of daring, devotion 
and soldiership of the highest order that had made Grant 
famous in the Fourth were all apparently forgotten. 
The stor>' told the writer by one of the oldest in the old 
Fourth, and one of the fondest friends Grant ever had 
— and he had them then by dozens and later by tens of 
thousands — was to the efTect that after a warning on 
one occasion, Buchanan had, on a second, called upon 
the captain to place in his, the post commander's hands, 
his written resignation, with the understanrling that 
should there be another lapse, that paper would in- 
evitably go forward " Approved." 

128 



PEACE— THE PACIFIC COAST AND TROUBLE 

" Grant was well nigh sick of it all, anyhow," as 
his fellows said. That winter of loneliness at Humboldt, 
with the home letters full of love and yearning from his 
fair, young wife, and the prattle of his baby boy of 
which she told him, seem to have determined and de- 
cided him. The captaincy was worth just then about 
thirteen hundred a year. If he could not make at least 
tvv'o thousand farming, engineering or teaching mathe- 
matics, he was better under the sod. There came a day 
when Buchanan saw reason to forward that resignation, 
dated July 31st, 1854, and to the sorrow of many a 
fellow who had learned to love his simple nature and 
straightforward ways, " Old Sam " Grant bade adieu 
to Humboldt, went direct to San Francisco and, eager 
to rejoin the dear ones at St. Louis, took the first 
steamer he could catch for home. To him and to the 
men who best knew him he was quitting the service be- 
cause the life and isolation away from family and fire- 
side had become insupportable. To many a senior, to 
many a soldier, and to heaven only knows how many a 
citizen thereafter, it was given out and understood that 
he left the army because he had to. Of the former were 
such sturdy Fourth Infantrj^men as C. C. Augur, a 
Christian gentleman and soldier, Henry M'. Judah, who 
stood by him in his sorrows at Humboldt, " Davy " 
Russell, of the Class of '45, Macfeely, of the Class of 
'50, Henry C. Hodges, of '51, one of the most soldierly 
men of his day, who still lives to tell of Grant as the 
most truthful man he ever knew. There were Kautz, 
of his old Georgetown home, who served with him at 
Vancouver, and George Crook, who lived with him 
awhile at Humboldt, both of '52, and then just after he 
left there came to join that array of Grant's friends and 
backers, the little giant of the Class of '53, with his snap- 
ping black eyes and quick, abrupt manner — like Kautz 
and Crook and Grant, a Buckeye to the core — Phil 
Sheridan by name. It was never safe to say in presence 
9 129 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

of such as these that " Sam " Grant had to quit the 
army. There were those among them who could not 
forgive it in Bonneville and Buchanan that he had been 
permited to go at all. 

On the other hand, there were men of rank and dis- 
tinction in and about San Francisco at the time, some 
of whom accepted the official side of the story and 
would seek no other explanation, nor for years would 
accept any other estimate of the humbled and sad-faced 
officer who for a few days hovered about the city. Of 
such was Ilalleck, the prosperous and successful lawyer, 
of such was not the recently resigned Tecumseh Sher- 
man, just then tr}'ing banking as a starter, the man to 
whom Grant might readily have appealed for aid had 
he not been too sensitive and proud. 

There were two men in San Francisco, as one of 
his biographers declares, who owed him a little money, 
and both of them were penniless when he applied to 
them for payment. Almost every dollar he could hope 
to get, therefore, was in an order for extra pay for 
court-martial services, and, because of some little techni- 
cal flaw, the paymaster refused to cash it. 

To a clerk in the depot quartermaster's office, who 
well knew Grant as regimental quartermaster, he was 
indebted for the only aid that came to him in all that 
crowded city. It was he who cashed the draft, he who 
secured a suitable stateroom in the returning side- 
wheeler bound for Panama, and who sympathetically 
bade Grant farewell. To the few of the Fourth whom 
he had seen ere leaving Humboldt Grant had said, "If 
you hear from me again it will probably be as a well- 
to-do farmer." To this humble friend in the depart- 
ment he said at parting : " I could not have hoped for 
such comfort as this stateroom, nor do I know how I 
can ever repay your kindness, but strange things have 
happened and may again." 

Strange things did happen. Simon Bolivar Buckncr, 
130 



PEACE— THE PACIFIC COAST AND TROUBLE 

of the Class of '44, who fought almost side by side with 
him at Molino, and who, like him, would not touch a 
brevet that told of Contreras, had been made captain 
and commissary and stationed in New York, and there 
he was when Grant arrived, practically penniless, and 
Buckner it was whose purse was placed at Grant's dis- 
posal to take him to that distant home, Buckner it was 
to whom Grant had to dictate unconditional surrender 
in less than ten years thereafter, and then to tender 
every dollar in his well-filled wallet to his prisoner and 
friend and former benefactor. 



CHAPTER XIII 
THE USES OF ADVERSITY 

Nor were the stories accepted at home, either at 
Georgetown or at White Haven, that Grant's " habits " 
had been at the bottom of his worries and troubles in 
the army. In point of fact, those were days in which 
the use of alcohoHc hquor was by no means a custom 
honored in the breach rather than in the observance. 
Whiskey of excellent quality was part of the prescribed 
stores of the militar}^ service, was sold to ofBcers and 
through them even to the men, at a very moderate price ; 
something under twenty-five cents would buy a gallon. 
Whiskey was habitually served at many a leading 
western hotel, a little glassful as an appetizer appearing 
beside each plate at dinner time. Wine flowed freely 
at every public function, and whiskey, rum and brandy 
had been served in tubs at certain presidential fetes on 
the White House lawn. There were strong advocates of 
total abstinence in the line of the army, as General 
Hitchcock records of the Third Infantry, just before 
the Mexican war; but in civil life, in the learned pro- 
fessions, and notably the law, in statecraft, politics and 
even the halls of congress, the total abstainer was a 
rara avis — the occasional over-indulgence by no means 
rare. In the service the story was still told of that most 
gallant colonel whom Hitchcock found, on his home- 
ward way from Mexico, dying in New Orleans, the 
man who defended Fort Sandusky with such furious 
personal vim and fiery example as to enable him with 
one gun and a handful of men to thrash a force ten times 
his 'iwn in numbers. Long years thereafter when com- 
plaint was made to the President and Commander-in- 
chief of the major's intemperance, " Old Hickory " 

132 



THE USES OF ADVERSITY 

turned upon the complainants with indignant protest: 
" That man has done enough to entitle him to get drunk 
every day of his life if he wants to, and," with a bang 
of his fist on the table, "by the Eternal, the United 
States shall pay for his whiskey ! " Long years later 
still, the gentlest, most patient, yet withal the wisest of 
our presidents was moved to endorse, upon a somewhat 
similar complaint against the man upon whom he 
leaned in prayerful hope : " I cannot spare this man — he 
fights." 

The homecoming was sweet and hope was still high 
when Grant rejoined the household in Missouri. Colo- 
nel Dent had never fancied for his daughter a life in 
the army, and the year just gone by, '53, had seen many 
resignations from the service of men confident of suc- 
cess in other fields. Brother Fred had recently written 
that their classmate, C. S. Hamilton, had tired of the 
service and gone to farming in Wisconsin, and Hamilton 
had never had Grant's practical experience in planting, 
ploughing and caring for the stock. Only a dozen miles 
out from St. Louis lay an unbroken tract of woodland 
which had been given to Julia Dent, and the very autumn 
of his return Grant himself set sturdily to work to fell 
the timber, clear the land, build a little log homestead 
for the wife and babies, and with the spring of '55 was 
almost happily, as in boy days, holding the plough and 
putting in long hours seeding and planting. He wrote 
hopeful letters to the father and mother and sisters at 
home. He worked as hard as any of the hands he was 
able to hire. He had to have a little help from father. 
and probably father-in-law, for the purchase or hire of 
horses, mules and implements, but if his crops turned 
out as his father's always had in Georgetown, it would 
be but a matter of three years when he could be free 
from debt and doing well. 

In those days he was far happier than he had been 
in California. During the winter he drove his cord 

133 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

wood into town and sold it in open market, and then 
drove cheerily back to the little homestead and the grow- 
ing family. On one of these occasions, in the rough garb 
of the farmer, whip in hand, he met his friend and class- 
mate, J. J. Reynolds, another of the recently resigned, and 
the possessor of a professorship, and Reynolds and a 
little bevy of army men joyously welcomed " Old Sam " 
to the Planters Hotel, and, as was so many a year the 
custom, clinked their glasses in cordial greeting, but 
Grant declined. During those few years from '54 to '57, 
while still strong and hopeful, he found his comfort 
in his home, poor and crude though it was, and could 
not be induced, it was claimed for him, even on these 
week-day excursions to St. Louis, to tamper with drink. 

But the crops never rewarded the labor given to 
them, and still he struggled on, growing a little grim 
now and more stoo{)-shouldered from much bending 
over farm work. He leased " Hardscrabble " in the 
winter of 'c,y anil 8, and took the old Dent farm, where 
in March he worked three darkies, and had one hundred 
and forty acres planted with corn and wheat, oats and 
potatoes, and again there came promise of success. And 
then, as fate would have it, the old enemy of his boy 
days, fever and ague, came and laid him by the heels, 
and with that blow went out the last hope he had of 
making even a living at the farm. 

They sold the stock, implements and supplies for 
what they could get, and the following spring moved to 
a very humble roof in town, and once again Grant strove 
to find a new \vay of providing for the wife and little 
ones. And now times became hard indeed, and the 
sharp, stem lesson of adversity was being forced upon 
him with every succeeding day. He entered into part- 
nership with a relation of the Dents. Real estate and 
collections was the new venture. Grant was no failure 
as a farmer, but as a collector he was simply a " flat." 

134 



THE USES OF ADVERSITY 

Any " hard luck " story would arouse his sympathies 
and disarm him. The partnership soon lapsed. 

He made an efifort to obtain the appointment of 
county engineer, backed by some few excellent names, 
and that office he could undoubtedly well have filled, 
but it was given to one of far more political influence. 
Grant was practically " down and out " when he made 
his final appeal to his father, and was told that the only 
thing in sight was a clerkship at eight hundred dollars a 
year in the country store his younger brothers were then 
conducting at Galena, Illinois. 

Burdened with care and more debts and troubles, he 
moved the family to the lead regions, found a cheap and 
not too comfortable house near the outskirts, furnished 
it as best he could, and then the man honored of all at 
Monterey and Molino, the dashing horseman of the 
Fourth Infantry, found himself bending over the desk 
or plodding about among the shelves and counters, 
more than ever out of his element, growing with each 
day more and more sad, silent, and, though about the 
fireside he strove to hide it, more despondent than even 
when racked with fever and the pangs of ague. 

The brothers found him of no earthly account at 
driving bargains or tending store. He could keep books 
after a fashion and do some of the heavy work in hand- 
ling the miscellaneous stock. His clothing was poor 
and shabby now, his hair and beard grew long and 
ragged. 

A man who later came well nigh to worship him, a 
would-be soldier even then, told the writer that when he 
heard there was a Mexican war man — a West Pointer — 
come to town and working in his father's old " general 
merchandise " store, bossed by his younger brothers, it 
excited curiosity and longing to see him. " I went 
round to the store," he said, " it was a sharp winter 
morning, and there wasn't a sign of a soldier or one that 
looked like a soldier about the shop. But pretty soon 

135 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

a farmer drove up with a lot of hides on his sleigh, and 
went inside to dicker, and presently a stoop-shouldered, 
brownish bearded fellow, with a slouch hat pulled down 
over his eyes, who had been sitting whittling at the 
stove when I was inside, came out, pulling on an old light- 
blue soldier's overcoat. He flung open the doors lead- 
ing down into the cellar, laid hold of the top hide, 
frozen stiff it was, tugged it loose, towed it over and 
slung it down the chute. Then one by one, all by him- 
self, he heaved off the rest of them, a ten minutes' 
tough job in that weather, until he had got the last of 
them down the cellar ; then slouched back into the store 
again, shed the blue coat, got some hot water off the 
stove and went and washed his hands, using a cake of 
brown soap, then came back and went to whittling again, 
and all without a word to anybody. That was my first 
look at Grant, and look at him now ! " 

They sent him around to neighboring towns collect- 
ing, occasionally. It was cheaper than hiring a lawyer, 
and they were sure of getting absolutely reliable re- 
ports, even if they did not always get returns. People 
in Jo Daviess County became quite accustomed to the 
sight of " Cap Grant," as they called him, but very few 
made his acquaintance ; especially was this the case 
among the professional men. During that hard year 
of humility and servitude in i860 his spirits were ap- 
parently at the lowest ebb. He seemed to shrink within 
himself. It was again said that he sought comfort 
occasionally in drink. It was told that when no more 
money could be had from father or brothers, and there 
was many a need at home, he borrowed here and there 
among the town folk — men who little dreamed they were 
casting bread upon the waters. He was sad and shabby, 
both, as the presidential election came on and Abraham 
Lincoln was to try conclusions once again with his old 
opponent Stephen A. Douglas, both of Illinois. There 
was little talk of other candidates in Jo Daviess County. 

116 



THE USES OF ADVERSITY 

In '56 Grant had voted for Buchanan, beheving that 
in the bitter feeling over the slavery question the country- 
would go to pieces were the abolitionist, Fremont, to 
be chosen. Moreover, Grant had little faith in Fremont. 
He might have voted for Douglas in the fall of i860 
had he lived long enough in Galena to vote at all. He 
held aloof from politics and from public meetings. He 
seemed to shrink from companionship of any kind save 
that of his wife and children. There were four of the 
latter now, and it is told that the sweet- faced little daugh- 
ter was the only one who could banish the look of care 
and worry from the aging face. He took but little interest 
in the campaign. Fie was a negative quantity in that 
community until after Lincoln was declared elected, 
until South Carolina, in a rage, renounced her allegiance 
to the sisterhood of States and, one after another, the 
Southern commonwealths followed in her lead. Then 
of a sudden the silent man at the store became restless 
and eager and, in answer to questions, began to say 
things other men repeated, and citizens who had 
hitherto only curiously glanced at " Cap " Grant as he 
went his weary way about their streets, took to stop- 
ping him and asking more questions, and telling each 
other of what the former army officer said. " He knows 
what he's talking about, too." And so it happened that 
leading men like Washburne and Chetlain, and that 
keen young lawyer Rawlins, took notice of him, and 
sought him out. It began to look as though such as he 
might be more than useful if a clash should come. 

And then suddenly it came, and with the news of 
Sumter and the humiliation of the Flag, Illinois woke 
up, as did the entire North, and Jo Daviess County 
would at once have sprung to arms had there been arms 
to which to spring. 

There were half a hundred, perhaps — old, altered 
" flintlocks," in the hands of a militia company, whose 
captain, making sorry work of drill one day, was moved 

137 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

to ask " Cap " Grant if he wouldn't show them how 
such and such a thing was done in the "regulars." And 
then occurred a transformation. The instant that shy, 
silent, undeniably slouchy store clerk took the sword 
and his station in their front, he straightened up like a 
young pine, his voice rang out full, firm and clear. With 
the ease and assurance of old habit he explained in 
quick, terse words the movement to be executed and 
gave the requisite commands. That night in Galena 
*■ Cap " Grant was the most talked of man in town, 
and when a few days later, after the mayor had 
" tluked " at the first great public meeting, and another 
one was held at which Washburne and Rawlins were to 
speak, nothing would do but " Cap " Grant should pre- 
side, and here was where they erred. It was one thing 
for a West Pointer to drill a company : it was another 
to preside at a public meeting. Ease, assurance, even 
voice was gone. Grant made a failure of it, as he knew 
he would, for he had vainly sought to decline. 

Accustomed to gauge their fellow citizens, after our 
worthy American fashion, by their utterances on the 
stump or rostrum, the good folk of Galena promptly 
lost what little interest they had begun to feel in Grant. 
The man who could not make himself heard in town 
meeting would probably never be heard of outside the 
county. Moreover, the scant respect with which the 
brothers treated him — though Simpson was three, and 
Orvil Lynch thirteen years his junior — had had its 
effect upon the public mind. Grant had reached the 
low- water mark of his fame and fortunes by the time 
the great war came on, and yet he tells us that he 
never despaired, never gave up hope that all might yet 
come well ; and yet we have been told that in spite of 
their poverty Mrs. Grant has declared that she, too, was 
hopeful and confident, and that her Galena days were 
among the happiest she ever knew. The children, who 
had been so ill at the farni in St. Louis, were now strong 

138 



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THE USES OF ADVERSITY 

and well — that was one thing — and whatever may have 
been the secret fears and misgivings of the father, they 
were never allowed to affect his gentle ways about the 
house. It was hard to feel that he was capable of far 
better things than the country store business, yet to be 
considered by his juniors unfit even for that. It was 
hard to have come down to being almost dependent 
upon the father and the brothers, to have to overdraw 
his account some fifteen hundred dollars, to have to 
bring his wife away from her own and to place her 
among aliens and strangers. It was hard in fact to 
have to leave Ohio or Missouri, in both of which he 
had known much better days, and to be buried here in 
the lead mines. 

And yet it would seem as though it was all part of 
a providential plan. That move to Galena was the step- 
ping stone to Springfield, to the presence of the war 
governor of Illinois, to opportunity at last, and then hav- 
ing " hitched his wagon to a star," on to Belmont, Don- 
elson, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, the command-in-chief, 
the close at Appomattox, the presidency, the world- 
wide honors that followed, and finally — martyrdom and 
immortality. 



CHAPTER XIV 
SOLDIER A SECOND TIME 

The President's stirring call, first for seventy-five 
thousand militia to defend the capital, and then for five 
hundred thousand volunteers, had met instantaneous re- 
sponse in the North. Illinois had answered in a blaze 
of patriotic fervor, and from almost every county her 
crude, quickly-organized companies were being rushed 
to the various rendezvous. The women were as pa- 
triotic as the men. They of Galena and Jo Daviess 
County sought to send their contingent properly uni- 
formed, and here, at least, was something " Cap " Grant 
might do. The women, it seems had not an exalted 
opinion of that veteran officer of the Mexican war, 
principally because, as one of them expressed it, " he 
couldn't speak up like a man in town meeting," but he 
ought to know about uniforms, and he did. In this 
wise it was ordained that the first war service of the 
ultimate commander-in-chief was the choosing of 
the cloth, such as was to be had, and the fashioning of 
the same into semi-martial shape, so that the women 
could stitch and sew and finally send off their company 
uniformly garbed to Springfield, Captain Chetlain march- 
ing at their head, sword in hand, " Cap " Grant, carpet- 
bag in hand, humbly bringing up the rear. Pie was 
going to Springfield to see if there were not some way 
in which he could further be of use. He could easily 
have been captain of the first Galena company — it was 
conceded that he knew more drill than any of them — 
but, having been a captain of regulars and schooled at 
West Point, and having ser\'ed through a sharp and 
hazardous war, he knew himself to be fitted for much 
higher command, and if war actually came, proposed 

140 



SOLDIER A SECOND TIME 

to seek it. First, however, he would try the State 
adjutant-general's office at Springfield. 

Arriving there on the 23rd of April, he came exactly 
at the right time. Charged with the duty of organizing 
half a dozen raw militia regiments, and having had 
dumped within their doors huge bundles of blank muster 
rolls, morning reports, ration returns and all manner 
of army forms and papers, the like of which none of 
their number ever before had seen, the adjutant-general 
and his clerks were utterly at a loss. The Governor 
was Richard Yates, one of the immortals whose name 
is ever to be linked with the great war executives, 
Andrew of Massachusetts, Morgan of New York, 
Curtin of Pennsylvania, Morton of Indiana, and Den- 
nison of Ohio — the men upon whom Lincoln mainly re- 
lied. The Governor w-as besieged on all sides with ap- 
plications for commissions, and they came as a rule 
from men who were brave, patriotic and zealous, no 
doubt, but who had had no experience whatsoever. The 
legislature had provided for the enlistment of ten ad- 
ditional regiments in case they should be required. The 
newly organized companies, nearly six score of them, 
elected from their own numbers their captains and 
lieutenants, but upon the shoulders of the Governor was 
saddled the heavy responsibility of choosing colonels, 
lieutenant-colonels, majors and staff officers. The 
hotels of Springfield were thronged with eager aspirants 
for these positions, and into their midst that April even- 
ing came this diffident, stoop-shouldered, poorly-dressed 
stranger from up among the lead mines. Accounts, even 
of Illinois veterans who w^ere there at the time, differ 
largely as to just how they came to meet — the Governor, 
burdened with the cares and worries of State, and the 
grim-faced, bearded ex-officer of regulars. Just who 
brought about the meeting, or how it was brought about, 
the writer cannot determine, so confident and circum- 
stantial are the varying accounts; but one thing is cer- 

141 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

tain, the moment that brought face to face Governor 
" Dick " Yates, beloved of all Illinois, and "Cap" Ulysses 
Grant, unknown outside of Galena, was an epoch in the 
history of these United States, All that Grant would 
say of or for himself was that he had had a military 
education at West Point and some experience in cam- 
paign. He was asked if he could help with those 
l^apers in the adjutant-general's ofTice, and he thought 
he could. Without being much of a clerk he knew, at 
least, how they should be made out, and was set to 
work forthwith at three dollars a day — probably more 
than he had earned at anything else since the hour he 
left the army. 

It was a strange condition of things. In spite of the 
fact that the President had to improvise an army with 
which to suppress the most formidable insurrection the 
world has ever known, Grant had been of the opinion, 
because there were still so many devoted lovers of the 
old flag and of the Union throughout the Southern 
States, that with prompt and decided action the Presi- 
dent could and should, with the means at hand, put an 
end to the matter in six months. Pie practically admits 
this in his Memoirs. lie had served much with South- 
ern men and in the South. He had been reared in the 
midst of Southern sentiment. lie had married a slave- 
holder's daughter. lie had even been a slaveholder 
himself. WHien it came to pass that after all manner 
of trials and vicissitudes, he was compelled to move 
to a free State, he was embarrassed as to what to do 
with the " boy " his father-in-law had given Julia Dent, 
his wife. " I can get three dollars a month for him 
here, perhaps," he wrote to Jesse Grant, but in northern 
Illinois he might get nothing, indeed might lose him. 
Grant was so strongly a Union man that, like Lincoln, 
he would see the Union preserved, even if slavery were 
to be perpetuated. 

But a few weeks' association with the exuberant 
142 



SOLDIER A SECOND TIME 

volunteers of his adopted State was sufficient to stagger 
his faith in the possibiHty of an early end to the rebel- 
lion. Officers and men alike were ablaze with patriot- 
ism, but ignorant of the first principles of military in- 
struction. Regimental camps were huge town meet- 
ings. There was splendid material for the work be- 
fore them, but no master hand to mould, to train, to dis- 
cipline. The Governor presently sent Grant to muster 
into the State service the new regiments in southern 
Illinois, and what he saw in their camps convinced him 
that under such colonels, no matter how brave and 
willing, no real soldier work could be accomplished. 
He presently had opportunity to revisit St. Louis, and, 
together with him who was his senior in " plebe " days, 
and who was destined to become the greatest and nearest 
of his subordinates within another year — with Tecumseh 
Sherman, fresh from his parting with pupils and 
faculty of the Louisiana University, Grant witnessed, on 
the loth of May, the first clash between the Union and 
Secession forces in the city streets. That served further 
to convince him that time would be required. Late in 
May, being utterly opposed to the methods of electing 
or selecting field officers in vogue in Illinois, and being 
fully determined to tender his services, he forwarded 
the then ignored, but now famous letter which is given 
here in full: 

Galena, III., May 24, 1861. 
Sir: 

Having served for fifteen years in the regular army, in- 
cluding four years at West Point, and feeling it the duty of 
every one who has been educated at the government expense 
to offer their services for the support of the government, I 
have the honor very respectfully to tender my services until 
the close of the war, in such capacity as may be offered. 

I would say in view of my present age and length of 
service, I feel myself competent to command a regiment, if 
the President in his judgment should see fit to intrust one 
to me. Since the first call of the President I have been serving 

143 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

on the staff of the Governor of this state, rendering such aid 
as I could in the organization of our state mihtia, and I am 
still engaged in that capacity. A letter addressed to me at 
Springfield, Illinois, will reach me. 

I am very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

U. S. Grant. 

By this time, too, Captain John Pope, of the United 
States Engineers, had been sent to Springfield, had seen 
Grant and urged him to seek a command. Meantime, 
also, there were new regiments coming to Springfield, 
among them the Twenty-first, organized at Mattoon 
on the 9th of May. On the 15th it had been mustered 
into the State service for one month by Captain Grant. 
A lively, hilarious thousand they were, and a hopeless 
task it was to keep them either in camp or order. Grant 
found opportunity just then to visit his father at 
Covington, and talk over the situation. He had another 
object in going thither: his comrade of the Mexican 
war days, his guest for some weeks at Fort Vancouver, 
George B. McClellan, had been called from the presi- 
dency of the Ohio and Mississippi Railway, to the com- 
mand of the Ohio militia, with the State rank of major- 
general, followed by his being commissioned almost im- 
mediately by the President as a major-general in the 
army of the United States — a sudden and most un- 
looked-for elevation. Orders from Washington as- 
signed McClellan to the head of a military district 
including the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri 
and certain adjacent territory, and the young officer, 
only thirty-five years of age, was busily engaged in the 
duties of this new and important command when Grant 
sought an interview, spent the greater part of two days 
in vain endeavor to see his former comrade, sitting the 
while humble and unnoticed in the hallway, and finally 
left disappointed. Pie says that he would ask nothing 
of McClellan, but owns that he hoped McClellan would 
tender him an appointment on his stafT. 

144 



SOLDIER A SECOND TIME 

Fortune had resented him for a far better fate. The 
Twenty-first Illinois had proved much too tough a 
proposition for any of the officers appointed over it. 
They were said to be in almost mutinous condition when 
Governor Yates was seized with an inspiration. If any 
man could do anything with them it was probably Cap- 
tain Grant, and a telegram went forthwith to Covington 
tendering him the colonelcy of the recalcitrant regiment. 
Back came the answer : " I accept the regiment and 
will start immediately," and on Monday afternoon, June 
i/th, he reached Springfield and went at once to camp 
to assume command. 

It had been planned to start proceedings with an 
appeal to their patriotism, and that great leader and 
orator, John A. Logan, was asked by the Governor to 
open the ball. Beside the swarthy, black-moustached, 
martial-looking speaker stood the new colonel, silent, 
travel-stained, with only a red bandana by way of a 
sash bound loosely about the waist of his worn, civilian 
sackcoat, and with a stick in lieu of a sword. Logan 
finished in a glowing apostrophe, and then, after the 
manner of the sovereign citizen of the boundless and 
unterrified West, the men of the Twenty-first began to 
shout for Grant. "Grant!" "Grant!" "Colonel 
Grant ! " " Speech ! " And the Colonel stepped quietly 
forward, waited for the tumult to subside, and in pre- 
cisely four words made the demanded, but by no means 
the expected, address : " Go to your quarters ! " he said, 
and, too much astonished for further words, the men 
obeyed. 

Eleven days later, a silent and reasonably subordi- 
nate regiment by that time, the Twenty-first Illinois, 
Colonel Ulysses S. Grant, was formally mustered into 
service by Captain Thomas G. Pitcher, U. S. Army. 
Five years later, when at last the supervision of the 
United States Military Academy was taken from the 
Engineers and thrown open to the entire army, the 
10 145 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

first " general " of our service, being called upon to 
designate the first superintendent under the new dis- 
pensation, laid before the President the name of Thomas 
G. Pitcher, brevet brigadier-general U. S. Army. 

The stories of Grant's brief and memorable service 
with the Twenty-first are innumerable. Several of them 
seem to be true. He was the first man to open their 
eyes as to the meaning of military duty and discipline — 
perhaps the only man then at or near Springfield who 
was capable of doing it. In the ten days that elapsed 
between his taking command, and their getting march- 
ing orders, a remarkable change had come over the 
Twenty-first. The bully of the regiment had come back 
from town one evening dnmk, defiant, mutinous, daring 
everybody or anybody to lay a hand on him. His com- 
pany officers and sergeants strove to soothe him, to 
mollify and persuade, which made him only more in- 
solent and defiant. Grant saw the trouble from afar, 
strolled calmly over to the company street, made his 
way through the crowd, and with one well-delivered 
blow and without a word stretched the bully on his 
back, called for a bayonet and, after the methods of 
the Mexican war days, deftly proceeded to gag the 
rioter. A more penitent bully Camp Dick Yates never 
saw than the tough of the Twenty-first when finally 
released. Nor were those days in which he could find 
sympathy or support in charging his colonel with brutal 
methods. Even the rank and file of the regiment said, 
** served him right." 

The next lesson was less personal in its application. 
The Twenty-first, it seems, took kindly to whiskey, and 
the Colonel one day got wind of the fact that many a 
canteen was " loaded." Halt, was the word, and then 
calmly the Colonel proceeded to have the contents of 
every canteen poured out into the thirsty soil of Sanga- 
mon County. The chaplain tells us all this, so it must 
be true. 

146 



SOLDIER A SECOND TIME 

The regiment was ordered to be in readiness to 
march at 6 a.m., and the Twenty-first, as had been their 
habit, took their own time. Those men not ready were 
compelled to " fall in " just as they stood or sat, and, 
some without shoes, some without caps or coats, were 
put through an hour's work before being allowed to 
fall out and get their entire equipment. In a week, 
though the drill was by no means good, the discipline 
was something the volunteers of Illinois, since the days 
of Baker's brigade, at least, had never seen or dreamed 
of. Other colonels came to watch the methods of this 
calm, resolute Mexican war man who never found it 
necessary to get excited or to swear. 

Up at the capitol Governor Yates was rejoicing over 
the success of his appointee, and laughing at the 
croakers, including the former colonel, who had pre- 
dicted the Twenty-first would prove too tough for even 
a veteran regular to tackle. There was another man 
among men, Elihu B. Washburne, of Galena, who was 
watching all this with keen interest and satisfaction. 
Both Yates and Washburne were beginning to " get his 
measure," as they expressed it, when sudden orders 
came from Major-General John C. Fremont, then com- 
manding at St. Louis, to send the Twenty-first to the 
Mississippi. The order was duly transmitted to Grant 
as colonel commanding, and the agent of the railway 
presently came in to the capitol to say in effect that he 
had been insulted. " I went out and asked that colonel 
how many passenger and box cars he wanted for the 
regiment, and he says he don't want any." 

The adjutant-general of the State, therefore, 
thought it incumbent on him to go out to the camp 
and remonstrate with the regular who wouldn't have 
dealins's with a railwav man. 

" Will there be any railway after I get to the Missis- 
sippi?" asked Grant, and the adjutant-general replied 
there would not. " Then, as my men must march after 

147 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

they get there, I mean to teach them how before wc 
get there. We march to Quincy. That's why we need 
no cars." 

And march they did, only five miles or so a day at 
first, so as to gradually harden and accustom the men, 
teach them how to pack wagons, pitch and strike camp. 
etc. He had ten days in which to make the trip, and 
every mile was a lesson. Once a dozen of the men got 
drunk at a country tavern, and the Colonel, imperturb- 
able as ever, never addressed a word of rebuke to the 
offenders, but ordered them " tied up " behind the 
wagons all the next day's march. It was hard to say 
which officer by this time most admired the Colonel — 
the worthy chaplain who tells of these effective methods, 
" regular," yet irregular, or Lieutenant-Colonel Alex- 
ander, whom Grant had superseded in command. Both 
these men were devoted Christians ; Alexander died at 
the head of the regiment at Chickamauga, and neither 
of them for a moment would have dared to do what 
Grant's common sense dictated as the only way to 
speedily reduce that complex command to discipline and 
subordination. Strange as it may seem, the men them- 
selves, almost as speedily, began to admire and swear by 
the man who never swore at them, yet made them obey. 

A brisk month of marching had the Twenty-first, 
and for many a day they followed in the lead of that 
sunburned, bearded, stoop-shouldered, shabbily-dressed, 
but inflexible master — shabbily dressed because for a 
time he could get no uniform, nor suitable mount. No less 
an authority than General Chetlain, first captain of the 
Galena company, tells us that when named colonel of 
the Twenty-first, Grant asked his well-to-do father and 
brothers to advance him four hundred dollars with 
which to purchase the necessary outfit. On his colonel's 
pay he could readily return it all within a few months, 
but both father and brothers declined. It was the 
junior partner of the firm of Jesse R. Grant & Company, 

148 



SOLDIER A SECOND TIME 

Mr. E. A. Collins, who had taken a liking to the elder 
brother, in spite of his business disqualifications, who 
quietly mailed to Colonel Grant the draft for the much- 
needed money, and Grant never forgot it. 

Not until they had been some days in Missouri, 
marching hither and yon, did the uniform come, and the 
Colonel was able to exchange the rusty cavalry sabre he 
had picked up somewhere about Springfield for the 
regulation sword of a field officer of Foot. That uni- 
form had hardly been worn a week before there came 
news that it would speedily have to be shed in favor of 
another. 

Meantime at Washington the President had been 
busy with his cabinet, his new military associates, and 
a countless array of self-constituted advisers, in the 
selection of the generals destined to lead the grand army 
of volunteers now called into service. 

On April 15th seventy-five thousand militia, as has 
been said, had been hurriedly summoned, and in mid 
July their time would expire. On May 3rd five hundred 
thousand volunteers had been summoned to arms, and 
much more than five hundred thousand promptly re- 
sponded. 

Empowered to name certain new major-generals in 
the regular army, Mr. Lincoln had at once gone outside 
of the line of promotion therein, and made his prin- 
cipal selections elsewhere. In April, '61, the army knew 
but one major-general, the veteran Scott. Of brigadier- 
generals it had John E. Wool, W. S. Harney, and Edwin 
V. Summer. Dating their commissions May 14th, the 
President added to the major-generals of the army, 
George B. McClellan, from the Ohio militia and for- 
merly of the United States Engineers, and John C. 
Fremont, formerly a lieutenant-colonel in the regular 
service, an explorer and frontiersman, whose chief 
claim to recognition in the eyes of the administration 

149 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

was that he had been the first Republican candidate for 
the presidency. 

Later, to date from August 19th, the President 
named Henry W. Halleck, also an Engineer-graduate of 
West Point, who resigned from the army the very day 
after Grant, but had been a deep student and a volumi- 
nous writer in military strategy as well as in the law. 

To the brigadier-generals of the army, with date 
from May 14th, the President added Colonel Joseph K. 
F, Mansfield, Inspector-General, and Major Irvin Mc- 
Dowell, of the Adjutant-General's Department. Dat- 
ing from May 15th were appointed as brigadiers, Major 
Robert Anderson, the defender of Sumter, and on the 
same date, as quartermaster-general, Colonel Mont- 
gomery C. Meigs, also William S. Rosecrans of Ohio, 
another Engineer-graduate who had resigned just be- 
fore Grant, and then embarked in business in Cin- 
cinnati. 

These were the general officers of the regular 
service at the orders of the government as the summer 
of '61 wore on. Scott was still on duty as general-in- 
chief at Washington; McClellan was at Cincinnati, Fre- 
mont at St. Louis. Halleck, at the outbreak of the war, 
was in California, a man of weath and distinction, 
and major-general of the California militia. It was 
not until late in the fall of 1861 that he was assigned to 
a cominand in the East. In addition to these appoint- 
ments in the permanent establishment, the great army 
of volunteers had to be provided with generals of divi- 
sion and brigade, and thereby hangs a tale that de- 
mands a chapter of its own. 



CHAPTER XV 
"THE STARS OF SIXTY-ONE" 

From the day that Grant took command of the 
Twenty-first he began, in the language of Governor 
Yates, to '* do things." His regiment progressed rapidly 
in discipline and efficiency. His officers and men had 
found their master. His early teachings had made 
them prompt at all duties and steady on the march. 
Once over in Missouri, sent hither and yon at first 
under the orders of Fremont, striking at reported camps 
of " rebel troops and sympathizers," then set to guard- 
ing the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railway, they were 
rapidly hardening into soldier swing, when they 
presently found themselves assembled with half a dozen 
other regiments to meet a Confederate force alleged to 
be in the neighborhood of Mexico, a little town some 
fifty miles north of the Missouri. 

Here it was promptly noted that, though Grant was 
junior in date of appointment to all the other regimental 
commanders, he was, nevertheless, the only educated 
soldier in the lot. As though by common consent he 
therefore was made commander of the improvised 
brigade. He owns in his Memoirs to a feeling of un- 
easiness on the march upon the town of Florida, Mis- 
souri, to the attack of a force under one, Tom Harris, 
a local colonel and Confederate of much repute. When 
they reached Florida, however, Harris and his men 
were nowhere to be found, and then, said Grant, " it 
occurred to me that Harris had been as much afraid 
of me as I had been of him. This was a view of the 
question I had never taken before, but it was one that 
I never forgot afterward." It was the last time Grant 
felt " trepidation " in close contact with the enemy, and 

151 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

it is well that he learned the lesson so early in the war. 

On July 31st his headquarters as commander of the 
forces in that disturbed district were still at Mexico. 
Then came orders to shift the regiment to Ironton, 
Missouri, via St. Louis, and it was in St. Louis, on the 
7th of August, that to Grant there came tremendous 
news. Two years before he was walking those streets 
friendless, penniless and seeking vainly for employ- 
ment. This day brought the tidings that he had been 
named by the President one of the foremost of the 
brigadier-generals of volunteers. 

It had all come about in the most natural way, yet the 
writer can well remember the surprise, the comments, 
and in one case at least, the rejoicing among regular 
officers in and about Washington at the time. To many 
of these latter he was still "Old Sam Grant" of the 
l"'ourth Foot, who went to seed somewhere out on the 
Pacific coast after the Mexican war. They could hardly 
be expected to know what Governor Yates knew, and 
Elihu Washbume, and John Pope of the Topographical 
Engineers, and through them the Illinois delegation in 
Congress, that of all the colonels Illinois had put into 
the field this man Grant had by long odds shown the 
highest ability and soldiership. He had taken that 
" Mattoon mob," as the Twenty-first had been described 
after they unhorsed their first colonel, had marched it, 
mastered it, and withal had been so prompt, efficient and 
useful in northern Missouri that even Fremont had 
been able to see it. For three weeks or more. Grant, 
in fact, had been exercising the functions of a brigade 
commander, and was even then under orders for an 
important command to the southward. 

And so it had happened that when the President 
asked the Governor, and the Illinois delegation in Con- 
gress, to recommend half a dozen of the Illinois colonels 
for appointment as brigadiers, head of their list went the 
name of Ulysses S. Grant, and presently, seventeenth 

152 




U. S. GRANT AS A BRIGADIER-GENERAL. 
NOVEMBER, 1861 



"THE STARS OF SIXTY-ONE" 

in the array of new brigadiers heralded to the nation 
through the columns of the press, the eldest son of 
Jesse Root, the humble clerk in the store of his younger 
brothers, found it necessary to order a new uniform, and 
an expensive one, before the buttons and shoulder- 
straps on that of the colonelcy had lost their pristine 
lustre. 

Grant had drawn only two months' pay as a colonel 
when he read in the St. Louis morning papers of his 
promotion to brigadier-general, and now, as though to 
confirm all that Jesse Root had ever declared as to the 
unbusinesslike and thriftless methods of his eldest son, 
Grant gave away that colonel's uniform before ever 
the still finer and costlier one had come. There were 
some few weeks in which Jesse and his younger sons 
were shaking their heads with mournful prophecy as to 
how much more " Ulyss " was going to cost them, when 
he began sending monthly checks from Cairo, at which 
point he appeared again in civilian dress, and Colonel 
Dick Oglesby, of the Illinois Volunteers, being in com- 
mand and in consultation with various civilian callers, 
had no time to more than casually nod to the new- 
comer and intimate that he would see him later, and 
was then somewhat mystified to find himself in the 
presence of a senior who had utilized the few minutes 
in writing an order assuming command and sending 
Colonel Dick to Bird's Point. And before this episode 
had occurred that other with Prentiss at Cape Girar- 
deau, wherein Prentiss, a brigadier in his own right and 
former brigadier of militia, had virtually declined to 
obey Grant's order to halt his column at Jackson, and 
was deeply aggrieved at being required to countermarch 
to the designated point, where he dramatically bade 
farewell to his troops and hastened to St. Louis to com- 
plain of Grant's unwarranted " assumption of au- 
thority." Prentiss had not imagined that by law Grant's 

153 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

years of service in the regulars made him the senior of 
all the Illinois generals, even had he not been named 
foremost on the list. 

And Prentiss was no more aggrieved or surj^rised 
than were others, ambitious, eager, patriotic men in and 
out of the regular ser\'ice. It is interesting to note the 
names and antecedents of those whom the President 
and his advisers decided upon that summer of '6i, as the 
leaders-to-be of that vast army then being called into 
the field. Those named for the permanent establish- 
ment, the regulars, have previously been given. For the 
volunteers, dating from the i6th of May, three major- 
generals were selected — Messrs. John A. Dix, of New 
York, famous as the author of the stirring despatch: 
"If any man attempts to haul down the American flag, 
shoot him on the spot; " Nathaniel P. Banks, of Massa- 
ctiusetts, long the distinguished Speaker of the House 
of Representatives; and Benjamin F. Butler, of Massa- 
chusetts, conspicuous as a militia general in that com- 
monwealth, and as having accompanied the troops to the 
front, and opened the Annapolis route to the capital 
when that via Baltimore was virtually closed. No one 
of their number could be said to have either military 
education or experience. In August there was added a 
fourth major-general, in the person of gallant David 
Hunter, long years of the regular army, a graduate of 
\\'est Point in '22, and a division commander at First 
Bull Run, where he had been painfully wounded. Much, 
therefore, was expected of Hunter. In September the 
President further added to his list a fifth, the Hon. 
Edward D. Morgan, Governor of New York, and there 
the list was closed for the year. Early in Febiiiary, 
1862, for all manner of good reasons, one more name 
was added to the major-generals — that of the gifted and 
distinguished old soldier-scholar of whom we had so 
much to say during the Mexican war — Ethan Allen 
Hitchcock of Missouri, and six days after that an- 

154 



"THE STARS OF SIXTY-ONE" 

nouncement came one to which the entire North gave 
instant and vociferous acclaim — the first major-general 
of volunteers made and appointed for the first signal 
victory for the cause of the Union, and the letters U. S. 
to his name were heralded far and wide as signifying 
to all enemies or opposers of the Union nothing short of 
" unconditional surrender." Of that hereafter. 

The summer list of '6i, however, contained but the 
four first-named as bearing division rank. The array 
of brigadiers was something worth studying. Dating 
from May 17th, and in order of rank as announced by 
the War Department, they were as follows : 

1. Colonel David Hunter, Sixth U. S. Cavalry. 

2. Colonel Sam P. Heintzelman, Seventeenth U. S. 
Infantry. 

3. Colonel Erasmus D. Keyes, Eleventh U. S, In- 
fantry. 

4. Colonel Andrew Porter, Sixteenth U. S. Infantry. 

5. Colonel Fitz John Porter, Fifteenth U. S. In- 
fantry. 

6. Colonel William B. Franklin, Twelfth U. S. In- 
fantry. 

7. Colonel William Tecumseh Shennan, Thirteenth 
U. S. Infantry. 

8. Colonel Charles P. Stone, Fourteenth U. S. In- 
fantry. 

Now, each of these above-named colonels had only 
been appointed as such to regiments only just authorized 
and not yet organized. The colonels of the veteran 
regiments of infantry, cavalry and artillery, were left 
as they stood. In several cases, if not many, they were 
too old for field service. 

Continuing the list we find : 

9. Lieut-Colonel Don Carlos Buell, Adjutant-Gen- 
eral's Department, U. S. A. 

10. Lieut.-Colonel Thomas W. Sherman, Fifth U. S. 
Artillery. 

155 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

11. Major James Oakes, Second U. S. Cavalry (who 
declined). 

12. Captain Nathaniel Lyon, Second U. S. Infantry 
(killed August loth). 

13. Captain John Pope, Topographical Engineers. 

14. George A. AlcCall, of Pennsylvania (Grant's old 
captain at Palo Alto). 

15. William R. Montgomery, of New Jersey, and 
Colonel First New Jersey V'olunteers. 

16. Philip Kearny, of New Jersey, and of the old 
First Dragoons, U. S. A. 

17. Joseph Hooker, of California, and the old First 
Artillery. U. S. A. 

18. John W. Phelps, of Vermont, Colonel First Ver- 
mont Volunteers (he who declined the Contreras and 
Chunibusco brevet). 

19. Ulysses S, Grant, of Illinois, Colonel Twenty- 
first Illinois Volunteers. 

20. Joseph J. Reynolds, of Indiana, Colonel Tenth 
Indiana Volunteers. 

21. Samuel R. Curtis, of Iowa, Colonel Second Iowa 
X'olunteers. 

22. Charles S. Hamilton, of Wisconsin, Colonel 
Third Wisconsin Volunteers. 

23. Darius N. Couch, of Massachusetts, Colonel 
Seventh Massachusetts Volunteers. 

24. Rufus King, of Wisconsin, Brigadier-General 
Wisconsin Volunteer Militia. 

25. Jacob D. Cox, of Ohio, Brigadier-General Ohio 
Volunteer Militia. 

26. Stephen A. Hur]l)ut, of Illinois. 

27. Franz Sigel, of Missouri, Colonel Missouri 
\'^olunteers. 

28. Robert C. Schenck, of Ohio. 

29. Benjamin M. Prentiss, of Illinois, Brigadier- 
General Illinois Militia, and Colonel Tenth Illinois 
Volunteers. 

156 



"THE STARS OF SIXTY-ONE" 

30. Frederick W. Lander, of Massachusetts. 

31. Edward D. Baker, of Oregon (who decHned, be- 
ing United States Senator). 

32. Benjamin F. Kelly, of Virginia, Colonel West 
Virginia Volunteers. 

33. John A. McClernand, of Illinois. 

34. Alpheus S. Williams, of Michigan. 

35. Israel B. Richardson, of Michigan, Colonel 
Second Michigan Volunteers. 

36. William Sprague, of Rhode Island. 

37. James Cooper, of Maryland. 

Now, regular and volunteer, from first to last, no 
less than five hundred and eighty-one brigadier-generals 
were appointed by President Lincoln. The original 
thirty-seven were the most favored because, being senior 
in date of commission, they early became division or 
even corps commanders, and presumably had the ad- 
vantage. It is important, therefore, to note these names, 
and it is interesting to study the cause of their selection. 

Down to Jacob D. Cox, of Ohio, all were educated 
soldiers of more or less service in the regular army, 
and all graduates of West Point except Philip Kearny 
of New Jersey. Having broken the ice with the ap- 
pointment of Cox, a militia brigadier in Ohio, the Presi- 
dent followed it by naming several gentlemen of no 
military experience whatsoever, notably Ilurlbut, Pren- 
tiss and McClernand of Illinois, Lander of Massa- 
chusetts, Cooper of Maryland, Schenck of Ohio, and 
Sprague of Rhode Island, Sprague had the good sense 
to decline. Baker, the greatest man of the array and 
soldier of proved mettle in the Mexican war, declined 
because the acceptance of a federal appointment might 
jeopard his seat in the Senate of the United States. 
Twice, thrice, importuned to accept even higher rank, 
he fought and died as colonel of the so-called California 
regiment, raised in New York and Philadelphia. 

Of these thus nominated the regulars accepted with 
157 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

alacrity with the exception of James Oakes, Major 
Second Cavalry, who preferred inferior rank with his 
own people. Nathaniel Lyon was killed before he ever 
saw his commission. William T. Sherman, McCall 
(Grant's old captain), 2^Iontgomery of New Jersey, 
Kearny of New Jersey, Hooker of California, Phelps of 
Vermont, Grant of Illinois, Reynolds of Indiana, Curtis 
of Iowa, Hamilton and King of Wisconsin, Couch of 
Massachusetts, and Richardson of Michigan, all were 
regulars who had left the army and gone into civil life; 
some of them, like Hooker and King, keeping touch 
with their former profession through the militia, and 
most of them reappearing at the first call in '6i, at the 
head of brigades or regiments of Slate troops. 

Only thirty-seven were thus appointed, and the most 
promising or prominent colonels of the regular service 
having been given the lion's share, the interest of the 
German-.Amcricans assured by the nomination of Sigel, 
and a certain few former ofiicers recalled to service, the 
remainder were presumably " picked " from the States. 
It was odd to see that while Massachusetts, New Jersey, 
Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin each was accorded two. 
Pennsylvania but one and New York none, Illinois had 
no less than four, three of them men unknown to, and 
the other ignored by, the officials of the War Depart- 
ment. The stone the builders rejected became the rock 
of the national defense. The humble captain of Foot in 
'54 became the first to zvin the double stars as major- 
general because of great and decisive victory in '62. 

First, however, he had had to suffer the slights of 
Fremont and the snubs of Halleck. From his salient at 
Cairo he could see golden opportunities for telling blows 
in Western Kentucky, yet could not induce Fremont to 
see. Then when Fremont was relieved by Halleck, the 
brigadier at the front found the Engineer at St. Louis 
equally deaf to his suggestions and entreaties. First, 
too, he had to test the nerve and discipline of his men 

158 



"THE STARS OF SIXTY-ONE" 

in the lively little affair at Belmont — where he attacked 
and burned the Confederate camp under the very guns 
of Columbus, and then, in extricating his men from what 
promised to be a trap, he well nigh lost his life. The 
story is old and familiar. The Confederates succeeded 
in landing heavy reinforcements between him and the 
transports, moored up stream beyond reach of the 
Columbus guns, and nothing but daring horsemanship 
and a single plank carried him to the crowded deck of 
the steamer. 

It had been no part of his plan to hold the ground 
at Belmont. Commanded, as was the site of the camp, 
by the guns on the eastern bluffs, retention of the field 
would have been impossible. The object had been 
simply to strike swiftly at the force there assembled, 
to prevent its march to the attack of Oglesby's little 
column to the westward, to destroy the camp and then 
get back. McClernand had gone with him as second in 
command, had fought bravely, and after their return to 
Cairo, while the senior contented himself with a brief, 
terse official report, the friends of the junior filled 
columns of the Illinois press with tales of how Mc- 
Clernand saved the day, and both in and out of 
Illinois thousands of readers were informed, and prob- 
ably believed, that McClernand, not Grant, was entitled 
to the honors of the fight. Grant read the articles and 
said no word in remonstrance. Moreover, to the eager 
and indignant members of his staff, he made it clear 
that he would have no newspaper controversy. Report- 
ers, eager to publish what Grant had to say concerning 
the claims of the ^McClernand faction, listened in open- 
mouthed surprise to his placid announcement that he had 
no time for newspaper fighting. This left to his would- 
be rivals a broad and fertile field which they lost little 
time in planting. The position of Grant in the public 
eye, therefore, as the first winter of the war came on. 
was by no means secure. For a day or two he had been 

159 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

hailed delightedly as the leader in our only victory. 
Barring certain minor successes of McClellan in West 
Virginia, nothing but humiliation had resulted from the 
encounters, east or west, thus far hazarded. The 
North had failed wretchedly at Big Bethel, Bull Run, 
and Ball's Bluff in \'irginia, had lost the general and 
the fight at Springfield in Missouri and the colonel 
and the post at Jefferson City. Only one good resound- 
ing blow had been dealt the enemy, and it was Grant 
who plaimed and delivered it. But above him, now at 
St. Louis, sat Henry Wager Halleck, who was at San 
Francisco and in touch with headquarters when Grant 
came down from Humboldt a practically broken man, 
and went his sad way back to civil life, leaving only 
the Buchanan side of the story for the information 
of army circles there, and now Halleck looked with 
disfavor upon the resurrected officer and with doubt 
upon his plans. And below him now was McClernand, 
brave, ambitious, full of energy and eagerness, and hav- 
ing all the advantage of years in Congress and political 
life, and in close touch with the press and the people. 
Then there was Prentiss, brave, honorable and patriotic, 
who would probably have made one of the best of the 
Western leaders, as Grant himself says, but who lost 
his head and temporarily his command through prac- 
tical refusal to serve under the orders of the Galena 
clerk and ex-captain. It took months to readjust that 
matter, and there were friends and partisans of Pren- 
tiss who joined forces with those of McClernand, and 
the papers took up the one-sided fight and stabbed at the 
silent man down there at Cairo. With intrigue below 
and distrust above him, things might have gone much 
amiss with the fortunes of Grant but for the stanch 
friendship and support of such men as Elihu Wash- 
burne and Governor Yates, on the civil side, and the 
loyal, soldierly and spirited — " the spirit of old West 
Point " — support of such men as his old-time com- 

i6o 



"THE STARS OF SIXTY-ONE" 

mandant, the model soldier who had tried to make him 
a sergeant, and his other old-time senior of the Class 
of 1840, now by the most extraordinary turn in the 
affairs of men, assigned as brigadier-generals of volun- 
teers in western Kentucky, and actually serving under 
the orders of the cheery-faced " plebe " who entered 
from Ohio in 1839. Charles F. Smith and William 
Tecumseh Sherman, who had had so much to do with 
licking into soldier shape the fledgling cadet from Brown 
County, Ohio, began their career in the volunteer army 
under the command of their modest pupil of the long 
ago. 

Twenty thousand men, there or thereabouts, had 
Grant assembled about Paducah, Cairo and Bird's 
Point, just as well prepared, said he, to take the field 
as were the sons of the South assembled about Colum- 
bus, and not only did he write and urge that he be 
permitted to advance and strike, but he went and 
urged, believing Fremont could be induced to consent. 
But he little knew Fremont, and he came back re- 
buked. Later on he ventured to impress his views on 
Halleck, and frigid and impassive silence was his re- 
ward. He who would not even defend himself in the 
public press, was being dragged into a newspaper war- 
fare, and thereby hangs another tale. 



II 



CHAPTER XVI 
SOLDIER IN SPITE OF STAFF AND KINDRED 

When the war broke out in '6i and an army of 
500,000 men was called into the field, no difficulty was 
experienced in getting the men — what we needed was of- 
ficers. Staff officers were few, and staflf schools we 
had none. Officers appointed to brigade and division 
rank from the line of the army had been prompt to 
select for their aides and adjutants the brightest and 
brainiest young soldiers in the service. Officers enter- 
ing from civil life upon such high and important com- 
mands, were compelled to look elsewhere. No division 
and few brigade commanders in the army about Wash- 
ington failed to have a " regular " or two in the official 
family. Few division and no brigade commanders in 
Kentucky and Missouri had anything but untried volun- 
teers. When Grant became a brigadier he was em- 
powered to name an adjutant-general with the rank 
of captain, and two aides-de-camp with the rank of 
first lieutenant. For adjutant-general he wrote at once 
to a Galena lawyer, Mr. John A. Rawlins, a young, able 
and energetic writer and speaker whom the silent soldier 
held in much esteem. It can hardly be said they were 
friends or intimates. Rawlins had charge of the legal 
business of Jesse Grant, the father, and much, there- 
fore, to do with the affairs of Orvil & Company. He 
had been a frequent visitor to the store, and had become 
interested in the self-effacing elder brother who seemed 
to shrink into the background when customers or busi- 
ness came. Mr. Rawlins had a near neighbor in a 
half sister of Grant's beloved mother, a Mrs. Lee, and 
Mrs. Lee would have it that in spite of appearances, 
adversity, and tales at his expense, "Ulysses" was 

162 





-GEN. AUGUSTUS L. CHETLAIN MAJOR WILLIAM R. ROWLEY 





BRIG. -GEN. JOHN A. RAWLINS 



CAI'TAIN ELY S. PARKER 



GRANT'S GALENA COMRADES-IN-ARMS 



SOLDIER IN SPITE OF STAFF AND KINDRED 

far the superior of " the rest of the Grants." It was 
not until the organization of the Jo Daviess Guards in 
April that Mr. Rawlins could see why. Then on a 
sudden, as it were, Ulysses abandoned the stoop- 
shouldered, slouchy gait he had acquired about the farm 
and shop, pulled his hat from the back of his head and 
placed it, West Point fashion, well forward, and 
" braced " generally. Rawlins knew of Grant's modest 
efforts and later tender of service and application for a 
regiment, and noted Grant's grim endurance of the 
slights that attended his appeal to the War Department. 
Rawlins had decided to enter the army himself, and was 
counting on the appointment to the majority of one of 
the new Illinois regiments when suddenly halted by a 
letter from Grant tendering him the position of cap- 
tain and assistant adjutant-general. Rawlins gave up 
the majority and joined his fortunes with those of the 
shabby clerk. It fell to Grant's lot to name many 
another staff officer in the next three years. It is doubt- 
ful if even in all the array of brilliant minds and brainy 
men with whom he was later surrounded — men like 
McPherson, Wilson, Comstock, Rufus Ingalls and 
Horace Porter, all West Pointers, all loyal, devoted 
and almost invaluable aids — Grant ever attached to his 
person a stancher staff officer, or in every sense a truer 
friend, than that Galena lawyer, John A. Rawlins. Our 
best friends, as has been wisely said, are those who 
fear not to tell us the truth about ourselves, and from 
that day in August, '6i, with rare fidelity and judgment, 
Rawlins served his kindly chief, rising with him, step by 
step, from the bars of a captain to the portfolio of Sec- 
retary of War, the most fearless and independent of all 
their number, because, perhaps, he had known and be- 
friended his leader when most he stood in need — the 
one who dared admonish when symptoms of that much- 
talked-of-but-little-known weakness returned, the most 
valuable because he knew what the others lacked — how 

163 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

to deal with civil and political influences, and withal, 
not far the inferior professionally of any one of their 
number, because he had iinally mastered in the school of 
actual war the principles which they had gathered at 
West Point. It was a red letter day for Grant when 
John A. Rawlins became his chief -of-staff. 

Writers have referred to this selection of Rawlins 
as clinching proof of Grant's knowledge of men. The 
selection of his first aides-de-camp and of later as- 
sociates, however, seems to disprove the proposition. 
Believing it due his original regiment to name one of 
its officers as one of his aides. Grant chose a lieutenant 
from tliat organization, and then, feeling free to look 
somewhere else, he harked back to St. Louis days, and 
lifted, from the law and collection office in which he 
had tried to work, a young man whose alert and cheery 
ways had much impressed the struggling, would-be col- 
lector. Then, Grantlike, having made his choice, he 
stood by it, keeping these two close to him through the 
first year of the war in spite of the fact that neither 
proved of military use and both of embarrassment. 
Then one became convinced that soldier life was not 
his proper sphere, and quit the stafif and service by 
voluntary resignation. The other lasted until the 'ate 
fall of '63, when " relieved " by order. 

But for months Grant was practically his own 
quartermaster, commissary, ordnance officer, inspector- 
general and, indeed, aide-de-camp. Rawlins speedily 
learned the routine of the adjutant-general's desk, but 
for many long weeks the general did his own writing, 
recording, endorsing, making out returns, requisitions, 
permits, passes and orders, as Rawlins discovered, when 
first he joined him at Cairo, and was amazed at the 
volume of business the unbusinesslike ex-captain of 
Galena days could now accomplish. 

The new uniform of the generalship had not reached 
the brigadier when he and his chief -of-staff settled 

164 



SOLDIER IN SPITE OF STAFF AND KINDRED 

down to work at Cairo. Grant had considered uni- 
forms as of secondary importance, even when he 
stopped at St. Louis to confer with his senior Fremont, 
who had arrayed himself in all the splendor regulations 
would permit, and more, and surrounded himself with 
a pomp, style and ceremony utterly unprovided for in 
those military scriptures. Grant sent in his name and 
rank, as required, took a seat in the hall, as he had in 
McClellan's ante-room in Cincinnati, and waited the 
convenience of the chief — waited hours in vain, an ob- 
ject of some curiosity, but no courtesy, to a half score 
of foreign-born and bred staff officials in gorgeous 
array — the soldiers of fortune with whom Fremont 
loved to surround himself. Not until a St. Louis 
quartermaster, an old army associate, happened in had 
so much as a friendly glance come his way. Startled 
into sudden familiarity at the sight of the best brigadier 
in the district sitting solitary in the semi-darkness of 
the hall. Major McKinstry exclaimed, " Sam, what are 
you doing here?" and then, bristling with indignation, 
went himself to apprise Fremont of the presence in 
waiting of one of the senior generals of his command. 
It appears that on this occasion Fremont received the 
travel-stained, unmilitary-looking westerner with some 
show of civility, though he could not forbear remark 
upon the absence of uniform, and was not too well 
satisfied with Grant's simple explanation that he had 
given away his regimentals when he ceased to be a 
colonel and had not yet received the more elaborate 
frock coat, and could not even buy in the West the 
starred shoulder-straps of a brigadier. 

The uniform, it may be said, came safely to Cairo, 
and he was quite human enough to sit for a photograph 
or two. There was a large one representing him in the 
full uniform of a brigadier-general, minus the epaulettes 
and chapeau, but with sword, sash, belt and the black- 
plumed Kossuth hat prescribed in '6i. It represented 

165 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

him as wearing a full, long beard, something he never 
did thereafter, for the hirsute crop during the winter 
at Donelson was short and almost stubby. That photo- 
graph was copied, presently, in full-page pictures by 
Harper's Weekly, and studied with infinite interest 
all over the land, for hope and faith, in spite of news- 
paper sneers as to Belmont, were settling upon him. 
But it looked so little like the Grant of Donelson and 
Shiloh of February and April, '62, that many a new 
arrival in the Army of the Tennessee failed to recog- 
nize the commanding general as he was. 

Another photograph, a group picture, was taken 
about the time, which seems of late years to have dis- 
appeared entirely. He refers to it in a letter to his 
sister, to whom he sends a copy and a list of the 
officers portrayed, and it seems further that he ordered 
too few to supply the family demand, for there had 
come over the Grants a sudden and marked interest in 
that much-discussed topic, " the fortunes of Ulysses." 
From having been the humblest and least considered 
in the lot, the eldest son and brother was now the ob- 
ject of no little comment and correspondence. The 
family had gained an access of imjDortance in the eyes 
of Illinois and Ohio friends and neighbors, and presently 
the letters to the district commander became freighted 
with all mrmner of requests for all manner of favors. 
The number of enterprising folk " with axes to grind." 
with fuel, forage, flour, horses, mules, beef cattle, with 
shoes, saddles and harness which they were eager to sell 
the government on Grant's recommendation was almost 
incredible. The family had always relied on the easy 
good nature of " Ulyss " in the past, and now sought 
to avail themselves of the relationship in the further- 
ance of their schemes. Now they wrote as confidently in 
the interest of some dealer, contractor or purveyor, 
nominated new staff officers, urged commissions or 
appointments for dozens of aspiring fellow citizens, 

166 



SOLDIER IN SPITE OF STAFF AND KINDRED 

and asked for passes or permits for peddlers and sales- 
men to pervade his camps and turn, presumably, many 
an honest penny. 

And now the son and brother appeared in a new and 
surprising light. Ulysses, the gentle, if not the wise, 
who had ever been yielding at the beck of his kith and 
kin, and who was ever a willing vassal to the will of 
his wife, developed an utterly unlocked for ability to 
say no. Whatsoever he had been wont to yield in mat- 
ters personal to himself, he would now most doggedly 
deny if it affected Uncle Sam. It is noteworthy that 
among all these suggestions and requests that came 
from father, sisters, brothers and brother-in-law, there 
was never one from that gentle mother. Between her 
and her first-bom there had ever been a wordless sym- 
pathy and understanding. She would not now enter 
into the family schemes. As for Julia Dent, her letters 
to him and his to her were ever too sacred for other 
eyes. Those written to other members of the family 
have been edited and published, and it is through them 
there are revealed these matters on which he and his 
staff would have been silent, especially that episode in 
which the son, now general commanding an army in 
the field, was compelled at last to rebuke and silence 
the father. 

Mention has earlier been made of Jesse Grant's 
propensity for writing to the papers, and when these 
journals began to fill up with the stories of the Prentiss 
and McClernand sympathizers, Jesse, as was to be 
expected, flew to pen in rebuttal and refutation. In 
vain the son counselled patience and silence ; the elder 
loved that sort of battle and wrote again and yet again, 
and was published, quoted, copied and reassailed until 
Grant, the son, at last could stand it no longer and 
demanded that it cease. 

" My worst enemy," he wrote, " could do me no 
more injury than you are doing." It seems that Jesse 

167 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

had been indulging in comments of his own at the ex- 
pense of other generals, " and these," said Grant, the son, 
" are unquestionably regarded as reflecting my views." 
In positive and not too filial terms he had to forbid his 
father's writing further for publication, and Jesse 
wonderingly asked himself: 

" Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed 
That he is grown so great? " 

But, for a time the papers had fattened on the fac- 
tional strife waged in their columns. It gave to Grant 
his strong dislike for newspaper notoriety of any kind, 
and his distrust of newspaper men and mention. It 
led to his habit of utter silence except in presence of 
his trusted friends. With them he could talk and did 
talk fluently and well. 

Whatever lingering doubt the family may have had 
as to the mastership of I'lysses was ended by the great 
victory of Donelson, and theirs were not the only eyes 
that were not too willingly opened. " To err is human, 
to forgive divine," and to forgive instant and over- 
whelming success in those whom we have long looked 
upon as flat failures is super-human. All things con- 
sidered, it is almost marvellous that Grant should have 
won at Donelson at all. 

To begin with, Ilalleck had reached St. Louis two 
days after Belmont, had taken over the command as 
left by Fremont and had been digesting all the news- 
paper misrepresentations of Grant ever since. Coupled 
with these were his recollections of the Humboldt 
stories in '54, and added to these were the tales of 
hangers-on about headquarters who are ever ready 
to undermine a rival or overthrow a coming man who 
has once been " going." Halleck wished to make haste 
slowly, as was the method of the Engineer. Grant, who 
had studied the field, the forces on both sides, and who 
knew, as Halleck did not, the generals confronting him 

168 



SOLDIER IN SPITE OF STAFF AND KINDRED 

ill Kentucky, was chafing with eagerness and confident 
of success. Along his front were Polk and Buckner, 
for whom personally he felt respect and regard. With 
them were Floyd and Pillow, one of whom he held in 
aversion, the other in contempt. 

Writing to Halleck proved fruitless. Grant had 
been urging attack on Polk at Columbus, claiming that 
every day was adding to the strength of its force and 
fortifications, but Halleck refused. Three months were 
well nigh frittered away, just as was the case with 
McClellan in the east, only there that great organizer 
had at his back three times the number of the enemy 
in his front, and vastly better drill, discipline and equip- 
ment. For weeks Grant had been begging permission 
to seize Fort Henry on the Tennessee, and hold the posi- 
tion in force. It would pierce at the centre the Con- 
federate line. Not until January 12th could Flalleck 
be induced to order Grant forward as a means of pre- 
venting the reinforcement of Buckner at Bowling 
Green. With McClernand and C. S. Smith for division 
commanders, in spite of roads rendered abominable 
by wintry rains, Grant took the field the instant Halleck 
would let him go, McClernand directed on Mayfield, 
Kentucky, midway between Columbus and the Ten- 
nessee, Smith straight at Fort Henry. Grant with 
Admiral Foote, steamed up the river, " sampled " the 
fort with a few shells and settled in their minds that it 
could easily be reduced and taken. But as soon as the 
scheme of reinforcing Buckner was fully blocked the 
troops were recalled to the Ohio, and Grant, without 
invitation, hastened to St. Louis to beg of Halleck per- 
mission to readvance and take the fort. He came back 
rebuffed and refused. Then Foote tried his persuasive 
powers, and still Halleck hung back. Twice again, 
on the 28th and 29th of January, Grant renewed his 
appeal, but never a word would Halleck vouchsafe in 
reply. Matters might have gone on indefinitely had 

169 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

not George H. Thomas whipped the Confederates at 
Mill Springs, far to the east of them, and as General 
Zollicoffer was among the Confederate dead, and the 
North frantically rejoiced over the little victor>% the 
first it had unquestionably scored, Halleck decided that 
he would have to do something. On February ist, 
therefore, he gave to Grant the long-withheld instruc- 
tions, and on Februar}^ 6th Grant telegraphed " Fort 
Henry is ours." He could as readily have done so if 
permitted three months before. 

Then he turned on Donelson, only a short day's 
march away and on the west bank of the Cumberland, 
but now the floods came, the winds blew and all nature 
took a hand in favor of the South. Only six thousand 
men garrisoned Donelson when Henry was captured, but 
by the 12th, when the frost and ice and snow replaced 
the rains, Grant's old benefactor, Buckner, was there, 
one of the twenty thousand assembled under two as 
useless generals as ever wore the Southern uniform — 
John B. Floyd and Gideon J. Pillow. Donelson was an 
admirable position for defense. The gunboats could 
approach it only under raking fire. It had to be in- 
vested on the land side by Grant's three divisions. The 
gallant admiral, hoping to use his Dahlgrens as ef- 
fectively as at Henry, ordered an independent naval at- 
tack, and in one hour's heavy battling had every boat 
disabled and driven out of action. Ten of his men 
were killed, many were wounded, he himself among the 
latter, and thus ended the navy's opportunity for the 
time being. 

A dismal Valentine's Day was that of February 14, 
'62. The mercury went to ten below. Scores of men 
were frozen, but all the same McQernand, Lew Wallace 
and C. F. Smith had strung their lines about Donelson, 
almost around to the upper river. The investment was 
practically complete. Grant had trotted down stream 
in answer to appeal from Foote, who lay disabled now 

170 



SOLDIER IN SPITE OF STAFF AND KINDRED 

beyond long gunshot, and who proposed taking all the 
boats at once to St. Louis for repairs, the army mean- 
time remaining in investment about the beleaguered 
stronghold. Grant had no objection whatever to the 
gunboats going for repairs — they were of no further 
use in their present plight — but he had other views as to 
what the army should do in their absence. 

And in the midst of the conference came tidings of 
battle, and Grant, galloping back, biting hard at the 
end of a cigar there had been no time to light, found 
lively eruption along his whole line, especially at the 
far right flank. 

It seems that Floyd had been urged to follow up the 
advantage gained in beating off the navy by impetuous 
attack on the encircling line. Grant had only a few 
field batteries, and the plan promised well. Floyd's men 
were hurled in force on McClernand's right, and drove 
it back, reopening the river road, but there the attack 
seemed to spend itself. By one o'clock Grant had re- 
joined, and without a moment's delay ordered a strong 
counter assault, beginning with his old commandant 
and his sturdy division on the extreme northern flank, 
and right loyally did that gallant soldier and gentleman 
respond. 

Straight through the wintry woods they drove, the 
long, irregular lines in the light blue overcoats, the 
heroic figure of their tall, slender and chivalric division 
commander, sword in hand, towering in their midst. 
Grant's eyes kindled at the sight. It brought back old 
days on the drill ground at the Point. It recalled that 
famous onset at Chapultepec, and those who saw him 
said that gallant " Charley " Smith was never a more 
superb picture of the knightly soldier than when he led 
his wild westerners into this, his first and, as God willed, 
his last battle in the Civil War. Stem was their recep- 
tion when they reached the Southern works, but furious 
their onward sweep, and as Grant galloped on through 

171 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

the murky woods to urge the prompt co-operation of 
Wallace and McClernand, the ringing cheer of the 
charging lines told him that even stubborn resistance 
had not stayed the rush of his left wmg; and now his 
every effort was needed at the right. Heartily the men 
of Wallace's division had taken up their share of the 
fight, but AIcQemand had been hard-pounded early in 
the day, and here it required some time and urging to 
accomplish the desired result. Yet when the evening 
shadows fell upon the smoke-shrouded forest, once 
again McClernand occupied the lines from which he had 
been driven in the morning, Wallace had carried the 
outer line in his front, and Smith, leaping the intrench- 
ments before him, had huddled the bewildered de- 
fenders close under the guns of Donclson itself. 
" Only in more compact formation for to-morrow's 
fight," said a croaker or two in the Union lines. But 
Grant had called for the haversack of a prisoner and 
examined the contents. Two days' cooked rations, such 
as they were, still remained. That meant, said he, that 
they had been tr>'ing to fight their way out ; that meant, 
as the soldiers said, that " we had them going." 

And so it proved. The Southern leaders met in 
council after dark at Dover. Floyd had had enough, 
and, moreover, entertained misgivings as to what might 
be his fate if captured, for as War Secretary of the 
United States under James Buchanan he had done all 
that lay within him to strip the Union and supply the 
South. Pillow, known to Grant of old in Mexico, 
weakened just as Grant predicted. Forrest, mettlesome 
trooper that he ever was, marshalled his four hundred 
Horse about him, slipped away under cover of dark- 
ness, and went on to a three years' career of daring 
deeds and desperate battle, while Buckner, soldier and 
gentleman, was left to make the best terms he could for 
himself and his beleaguered thousands of Foot and 
Artillery. Not only Fort Henry was won, but Donelson, 



SOLDIER IN SPITE OF STAFF AND KINDRED 

the stronghold of the southwest, with all its guns, muni- 
tions and supplies, with two general officers and thir- 
teen thousand men captured, and over two thousand 
slain or severely wounded. These were the immediate 
fruits of the first decisive battle of the long and bitter 
war — a battle planned and a victory won by the " flat 
failure " as farmer, collector, clerk, as so many writers 
insist, but, as soldiers see it, by a general whose leader- 
ship was known of old, and whose mettle had long 
been tried and proved — by Grant, the man of Molino 
and of Monterey. 



CHAPTER XVII 
THE REWARDS OF DONELSON 

Bitter was the cup of the gallant Southern leader 
who chose to share the fate of his fellow soldiers. 
Floyd and Pillow, loading what they could on light 
draft river boats at the Dover levee, had steamed away 
to safety during the night, and were speedily lost to 
public view. Forrest, with his brace of lively squad- 
rons, had managed to squirm out of the net, and it was 
left to one of the bravest and best of the " sons of the 
dark and bloody ground " to appeal to the soldier who 
seven years earlier had been compelled to appeal to 
him, and whom he, Buckner, had so generously aided. 
" Unchivalric " indeed seemed the terms of the brief, 
stem reply penned by the conqueror, yet Simon Bolivar 
Buckner was soldier enough to know that in the busi- 
ness of war there could really be no other issue. He 
had asked at dawn of the i6th for six hours' truce 
and for commissioners. He very probably knew that 
the obvious answer of a thorough soldier must be that 
which came instanter : " I propose to move im- 
mediately upon your works." There was left to Buck- 
ner, therefore, only unconditional surrender. 

That surrender accomplished, his stern task com- 
plete and his full duty perfonned, who could then more 
thoroughly requite the ancient debt of gratitude than 
he who demanded the uttermost compliance with " the 
custom of war in like cases " ? Grant's hand w^ent out 
instantly to greet and welcome the friend of old. 
Grant's wallet, well-filled now, was forced upon his 
benefactor of 1854, and the fellowship of other days 
was renewed over the campfires of huml)led Donelson. 

" Unconditional surrender ! " The North read the 
174 



THE REWARDS OF DONELSON 

magic words flashed over the wires with a gasp almost 
of amaze and increduHty — then gave way to the wildest 
demonstration of delight. How the cannon boomed and 
the joy bells pealed and strong men shook with pent 
emotion ! Accustomed for long months, after the bit- 
ter humiliation of the summer and early autumn, to 
hear of nothing but parade and preparation in the Army 
of McClellan in Virginia, of nothing but delay and 
demand for reinforcements in the Army of Buell in 
Kentucky, having read day after day slur and in- 
nuendo as to Grant, having been assured that he was 
whipped at Belmont, that, a second time, he had slunk 
back to the Ohio from unsuccessful essay at the hostile 
lines, that it was Foote and the gunboats, not Grant 
and the volunteers, that triumphed at Henry, having 
read with dismay that Foote and the gunboats had 
been shot out of action in front of Donelson, and that 
Grant would probably for the third time have to re- 
treat on the Ohio, the North was dreading new disaster, 
the South was thrilling with assurance of new triumph, 
for had not Pillow mendaciously, before his ignominious 
skip for safety, wired to Richmond, " The day is ours. 
I have repulsed the enemy at all points " ? And so it 
resulted that when by the morning of the 17th of Feb- 
ruary it was proved beyond peradventure that the 
rumors of the night before were actually true, a very 
frenzy of rejoicing and of gratitude overswept the 
'North and descended upon Grant. 

And now indeed it called for all the native modesty 
of the man and the wisdom of Ulysses to withstand the 
wave of adulation, and later all the patience of his long 
tried and tempered spirit to bear in silence the revela- 
tion of the efforts made to credit others and to rob 
him, the inspiration of the entire enterprise, of the 
fruits of his well-earned victory. 

One of Halleck's first despatches to the Secretary 
of War, after that which announced the astounding 

175 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

news, was an assurance that the administration could 
" make no mistake whatever " in conferring immediate 
promotion upon General Charles F. Smith, whose gal- 
lantr}' merited prompt recognition. True enough! All 
the old army knew and honored and admired Charley 
Smith, and it was of course possible that to the mathe- 
matical mind of Halleck, the older officer, the former 
commandant should be replaced on the ladder of pro- 
motion above his former cadet pupil, whom the accidents 
and fortunes of war had temporarily made commander 
in the field. 

How that fetish of rank only by seniority seemed 
to clog the military policy of the United States! The 
writer well remembers the buzz of comment in eastern 
army circles over the original elevation of Grant, J. J. 
Reynolds and C. S. Hamilton, of the Class of '43, 
above so very many of their elders in the service. And 
now that Grant, who, as we were so often reminded, 
" had quit the service under a cloud," should have been 
the first and only man to win a great and decisive bat- 
tle, the first to accomplish great results, and therefore 
to be almost sure of corresponding reward, many were 
the military obstacles thrown in his path. Halleck was 
but the exponent of a sentiment that found expression 
in many a way. 

But adverse influences were utterly swamped in the 
wave of public opinion, and in the tumult of national 
rejoicing. Those magic words " unconditional sur- 
render," and the pointed, pithy sequel, " I propose to 
move immediately upon your works," had fired the 
smouldering fervor of the North, and the flame of 
triumph and delight more brilliantly illumined the de- 
tails of Grant's mid-winter exploit. The more it be- 
came public property the bigger and more popular it 
grew. 

There had been no co-operation on part of Ruell's 
forces to the east. There had been only opposition on 

176 



THE REWARDS OF DONELSON 

part of Halleck almost to the last, although it is ad- 
mitted that, when finally committed to the move, Hal- 
leck did what he could to reinforce his field captain; 
but neither was needed — Grant " won out " without a 
hand from Buell or a man from Halleck — the hand and 
the man came only after Donelson was ours. 

It is true that when the magnitude of the achieve- 
ment dawned upon Halleck and he realized how very 
much greater was Grant in the public eye than any other 
man at the front, or even himself at St. Louis, he then 
had the sense to second the overwhelming nomination of 
the people and suggest the promotion of Grant. But 
even then he could not single him out as he should have 
done. " Make Buell, Grant and Pope major-generals of 
volunteers," he wired to the War Department. Mark 
the order in which they are named ; consider what each 
had thus far accomplished, and defend it if it can be 
defended. Buell had been drilling and organizing in 
Kentucky, and with abundant men holding a line in 
front of Louisville. Pope had been commanding a dis- 
trict in Missouri, both doing loyal, valuable, but com- 
paratively passive service. Grant had been active as a 
terrier from the very start, a leader in aggressive moves 
against the hostile forces in the field, personally com- 
manding in two spirited battles, Donelson resulting in 
the utter demolition of the enemy's stronghold, in pierc- 
ing the enemy's centre, and in widespread consternation 
and dismay in the South, in opening the two great rivers 
leading into the heart of Tennessee, in compelling the 
evacuation of Bowling Green to the east, and Columbus 
to the west, both of them "turned," and all of this 
brought about by sheer fighting against entrenched and 
equal foes. There had been absolutely nothing to 
match, nothing to approximate it, yet nevertheless, said 
Halleck, " Make Buell, Grant and Pope major-generals 
of volunteers, and give me the command of the West. 
I ask this in return for Forts Henry and Donelson." 
12 177 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

It is unnecessary to comment upon that despatch. 
It is significant that the wise and inspired head of the 
nation fathomed it and followed his own conclusions. 
Just one name was at once sent to the Senate for recog- 
nition as the result of Donelson. In the clear mind of 
Abraham Lincoln no vestige of doubt beclouded the 
right of the commander on the spot — the man who 
planned and persevered, who personally led the fighting 
line, and finally forced that unconditional surrender. 
Ulysses S. Grant was named Major-General of \'oIun- 
teers to date from February i6th, and was as promptly 
and unanimously confirmed by the Senate. 

Later on, along in March, when all the reports were 
received, there were other and deserved rewards for 
Donelson. McClernand, Smith and Wallace, five weeks 
after Grant, were accorded their double stars — Buell 
and Pope going up with them, so that they, too, prac- 
tically owed their promotion to Donelson and to Grant, 
as nothing else outside of Halleck's recommendation 
had occurred to call for it — Pope having only just be- 
gun at Island No. lo, and Buell not yet having ventured 
a battle. Quite a little crop of brigadiers, too, sprang 
from the battling ranks of Donelson ; five Illinois colo- 
nels— Oglesby, Cooke, W. H. L. Wallace, McArthur 
and Logan rising to the stars, also Lauman, of Iowa. 
So, too, on this date there were others for which Don- 
elson was not the cause, but the opportunity, as in the 
case of Grant's classmate and fellow captain of the 
Fourth Infantry at Fort Humboldt, Henry M. Judah, 
colonel Fourth California; so, too, "Bob" McCook, 
of Ohio, Speed S. Fry, of Kentucky, VanCleve, of 
Minnesota, and Manson of Indiana, who had fought 
with Thomas at Mill Springs, but in spite of that 
spirited little victory no reward as yet had come to 
Thomas. On that same date, March 21st, Samuel R. 
Curtis, of Iowa, had been made major-general for the 
Pea Ridge battle, but not until a month after the re- 

178 



THE REWARDS OF DONELSON 

wards of Mill Springs and Donelson and Pea Ridge 
had been confirmed by the Senate could an over sus- 
picious and obdurate War Secretary see his way to 
signing the commission of George H. Thomas as major- 
general. The man who planned and fought and com- 
manded and won at Mill Springs, nearly a month be- 
fore McClernand, Smith and Wallace fought as sub- 
ordinates at Donelson, got his major-generalship a 
month behind them. Only four colonels fought under 
Thomas at Mill Springs, and all four were rewarded 
a month ahead of him. However, this is opening 
another story. Few men except those who served 
under George H. Thomas knew him at his full worth ; 
even Grant came to misjudge and almost to wrong him, 
and if one as just and appreciative as Grant could fail 
to appreciate Thomas, what could be expected of Stan- 
ton, who misjudged so many and suspected all? 

And so Abraham Lincoln and the applauding North 
made it obvious that whatsoever Halleck might think 
or say or ascribe to himself, the name that deserved 
to be heralded foremost in connection with Donelson 
was that of Grant. It was the only name for many 
days that was heard, and Grant's headquarters were 
bombarded with telegrams, letters and messages of con- 
gratulation, sometimes coupled with suggestion, and fre- 
quently with request for favors. Grant's headquarters 
were besieged by callers, visitors, gifts and correspond- 
ents. Callers were made welcome and entertained as 
far as it was possible with the means at hand. Grant 
at first chatted frankly and cheerily in his open-hearted 
way with any and all comers, with the result that all 
manner of misquotations began to appear in the public 
press, and Rawlins took alarm and occasion to warn 
his chief. Gifts, almost the first he had ever known, 
came, heartily tendered and frankly and gratefully re- 
ceived, but correspondents thereafter were not, and 
censors innumerable have declared that Grant would 

179 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

have been wiser had he reversed the issue, declined the 
gifts, but received the correspondents. The gifts in- 
cluded creature comforts of many kinds, especially 
cigars, for that unlighted weed with which he galloped 
to the front at Donelson had started the story that 
Grant was an inveterate smoker — something he never 
had been, though when first employed about Springfield 
he cherished a grimy little meerschaum pipe. But after 
Donelson cigars poured in by the thousand and Grant 
and his staff could not even by assiduous effort begin 
to consume them. 

The Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy 
had gone further in his reward and recognition of 
Grant. He had ordained, dating from February 15th, 
that the Military District of the Tennessee should be 
given to that officer, and as no limits were assigned, and 
as Halleck had not yet at least been announced as in su- 
preme command in the West, the victor of Donelson 
found himself charged with new and important duties 
and responsible for all that might occur in a wide range 
of territor)\ Many men would have become inflated 
with importance, and many more would have 
looked upon it as an independent command. Grant 
was level-headed ; he did neither. Men about him and 
his staff — not Rawlins — pointed out that of all the 
generals now on duty not one stood as high in public 
estimation as he, and that Halleck, Fremont and even 
McClellan might well look to their laurels and be 
jealous. Fremont had failed and been superseded in 
Missouri. Halleck had simply thwarted and obstructed. 
McQellan had built up and assembled a magnificent 
army, but kept it cooped about the encircling forts of 
Washington. People east and west were chafing at the 
inaction along the Potomac, and all the North was hail- 
ing Grant as the one man who really " did things." 

Then there were other considerations. He had 
stepped from behind the counter of a country store to 

180 



THE REWARDS OF DONELSON 

the command of a regiment, had been named nineteenth 
on the list of brigadier-generals, first appointed, and 
of all that list of forty brigadiers he was the first to 
rise to the grade of major-general. Where were the 
men who had forced him from the service years be- 
fore? Neither one of them had yet been mentioned for 
even a brigade command and one of them never would 
be. If Ulysses Grant had picked up the troops along 
the Tennessee and gone careering off after Polk and 
Sidney Johnston, then marching to the defense of Nash- 
ville, all the North would probably have applauded, 
whether Halleck approved it or not. 

But Grant was a graduate of West Point, schooled in 
discipline and subordination. Halleck was still his 
superior, and therefore to Halleck in all deference 
Grant submitted his next plans. It was his profound 
conviction that a strong column sent southward at once 
would split the Confederacy in twain, would find hun- 
dreds of adherents to the old flag, would crush the 
rebellion in the West and cripple the Richmond govern- 
ment beyond repair. It was his belief that the South 
staggered under the blow of Donelson, and that sound 
generalship demanded instant pursuit and incessant 
pounding. 

With this purpose in view Grant had pushed C. F. 
Smith, his surest division commander, forward to 
Clarksville on the Tennessee. Then he deemed it neces- 
sary to personally meet and confer with Buell, who by 
this time should be close at the heels of the retiring 
Confederates and camped over against Nashville. All 
this was absolutely within his rights. With Smith 
commanding his advance and Tecumseh Sherman look- 
ing after communications at the rear, his rough-hewn 
army of Westerners seemed in the best of hands. Now 
for a blow at Nashville — the Richmond of the West, 
a position of the same relative importance on the one 

i8i 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

side of the Alleghenies as was the Confederate capital 
on the other. 

But here came a strange and most unlooked-for 
misadventure. Loyally and subordinately had Grant re- 
ported his movements and intentions to his senior in 
St. Louis. All proper telegrams and written reports 
and returns had been prepared in his field office and 
placed in the hands of the government telegrapher, or 
in custody of its mail agents. It seemed odd that from 
Halleck there came no word of acknowledgment or 
commendation. It seemed odd that there should be no 
response to Grant's urgent request for steamers to en- 
able him to move his men at once to Nashville. Smith 
had found Clarksville abandoned. Buell had found Sid- 
ney Johnston retiring southward from Nashville. It 
was most important that Grant in person should hasten 
to the front, yet no reply whatever had come to his 
despatch suggesting that " unless otherwise ordered " 
he would take Nashville about March ist. Then when 
tidings came of its occupation by Nelson's division of 
Buell's army, Grant further wired that he would him- 
self go thither on February 28th " if no orders came to 
the contrary," and thither accordingly he went, and 
with most surprising and disheartening results. 

All these days a traitorous official in the telegraph 
office had been suppressing certain of Grant's mes- 
sages to Halleck and Halleck's to Grant — the latter be- 
coming more and more acrid as they seemed to pro- 
duce no effect, and just at the time when, in the full 
flood of his triumph, the new commander of the 
District of the Tennessee was vigorously at work at the 
extreme front, planning swift concentration of Buell's 
finely-drilled brigades with his own rough-and-ready 
campaigners, far to the rear the wires between St. Louis 
and Washington, between Halleck and McClellan, were 
humming with schemes for his undoing. The general 
in chief command in the valley of the Mississippi — he 



THE REWARDS OF DONELSON 

whom McClellan later described as " the most hope- 
lessly stupid official " he ever met, and a man destitute 
of military ideas — he whom the soldiers, ignorant of all 
these happenings, and impressed mainly by the gravity 
and deliberation of his movements, later christened 
" Old Brains," he who was indebted mainly to Grant 
for the successes achieved in his military bailiwick, 
was wiring McClellan, still in chief command of all 
our forces in the field, words to the effect that ever 
since Donelson Grant had ignored him, that Grant 
without his authority had quit his command and gone to 
Nashville, that Grant, " satisfied with his victory, sits 
down and enjoys it without any regard for the future. 
I am worn out and tired out with this neglect and in- 
efficiency." This of the man who had almost worn 
himself out trying to get Halleck to let him do anything, 
and who was now fairly brimming over with eagerness 
and impatience to do more. 

And McClellan, he who, secure in his high place, 
could find no time or inclination to listen to appeals for 
action coming from the over-patient President, or for 
justice, coming from his imprisoned comrade, Stone 
(another victim of calumny unqualified), he who pos- 
sibly recalled old days in the quartermaster's cabin at 
Vancouver, and lent ready ear to rumor of renewed 
lapses, wired back to Halleck authority to arrest Grant 
and relieve him of his command. 

If this, as said a Christian gentleman and gallant 
soldier, " wasn't enough to make a saint swear, nothing 
else could be," and yet it is a matter of fact and record 
that, when it all came to the ears of Grant, he never 
so much as uttered an expletive. But what C. F. Smith 
and Sherman said of that episode and of Halleck would 
make in both cases interesting, and in one inflammably 
lurid, reading. Like Grant, Smith was averse to blas- 
phemy ; Sherman was an impetuous expert. 

And so for a time, thanks partially to the treason of 
183 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

the telegrapher, who lied southward between two days, 
bearing the suppressed dispatches with him, but due 
quite as much to the prejudice, the distrust and pos- 
sibly the jealousy of Halleck and the credulity of 
McQellan ; thanks, too, it must be owned, to the fact 
that there had been times when McClellan had seen 
and Halleck had known Grant's over-indulgence in 
liquor, the man of the hour stood temporarily discred- 
ited at headquarters of the armies of the United States, 
but not in the hearts of the people. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

FROM DONELSON TO SHILOH 

" I FEEL myself competent to command a regiment," 
Grant had written to the War Department in May, '6i, 
but officers of his staff say that while at Cairo, before 
Donelson, he wished that he had a brigade of cavalry 
in Virginia; he believed he could "do things" with 
such a command, and. left to himself and his own de- 
vices, there is no reason to doubt he could. Placed 
under McClellan, who knew no use whatever for 
cavalry, he would have had no chance, and now, placed 
in command along the Tennessee where he had no 
cavalry worth mention, he was speedily in position to 
need it at the front quite as much as he had need of 
friends at the rear. It is characteristic of Grant that 
he rose superior to the need, both in front and rear, and 
got along without either. 

Not for nearly a fortnight did the situation clear 
itself along the Tennessee, but meantime Sidney John- 
ston had retired, unpursued and unmolested, to Mur- 
freesboro, and then still southward. History has failed 
to mention the rewards heaped upon a certain Southern 
sympathizer in Northern service — that elusive teleg- 
rapher — when he reached, as we are told, the Southern 
lines, " bearing his sheaves with him " — all those mes- 
sages which should have passed between Grant and 
Halleck. If the breaking up of an aggressive cam- 
paign and the creation of illimitable discord in the 
camps of the enemy are legitimate acts of war, that 
faithless employe of the United States had abundantly 
served the South. Possibly such men as Sidney John- 
ston, Polk and Hardee cold shouldered such methods. 

i8s 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

As Philip Kearny said early in '6i, " It is a gentleman's 
war," and as such they sought to keep it. 

Astonished and humiliated, Grant had received the 
curt order assigning to Smith the command of opera- 
tions along the Tennessee, and the intimation that he, 
the conqueror of Donelson, would be expected to remain 
at Fort Henry. " Why do you not render the reports 
repeatedly called for? " was the telegraphic inquiry that 
finally opened his eyes to the fact that before desert- 
ing the telegrapher had been faithless to his trust. Then 
in all subordination Grant sent copies of the despatches 
previously penned. Then the senior major-general, 
much perturbed, began gradually to realize that all these 
things he had been saying to McClellan in condemna- 
tion of Grant were actually without foundation. Then 
it as gradually dawned upon him that grievous wrong 
liad been done a loyal, gallant and most efficient sub- 
ordinate, and then, it seems, "Old Brains" (not yel 
so nicknamed) was at his wit's end to "square him- 
self," as soldiers say, with his superiors at the War 
Department and with his junior in rank, yet superior in 
soldiership, at the front. He had little difificulty in set- 
tling with the former. He could throw much of the 
blame upon the telegraph operator. He need have had 
no difficulty, though there might have been deserved 
embarrassment, in setting with his wronged and ag- 
grieved junior. A frank, straightforward statement 
would have done it and swept away at once the cloud 
that long had hovered and that now and henceforth 
lowered between Halleck himself and his most dis- 
tinguished junior, soon destined to become his superior 
officer. Moreover, Halleck had with him as friend, ad- 
viser, chief-of-stafF and fellow graduate, his elder by 
six years in the army and decidedly his better in counsel 
—George W. Cullum, of the Class of '33. H Cullum 
had heard the stories to Grant's detriment he had little 
heeded them, and while Halleck had found no words 

186 



FROM DONELSON TO SHILOH 

in which to commend and congratulate the victor of 
Donelson, Cullum had penned most cordial and graceful 
expression of appreciation. Cullum gloried and re- 
joiced in Grant's exploit. It was a feather in the cap 
of the Alma Mater he loved. Cullum, who had won 
Grant's trust and gratitude, could speedily have mended 
the now serious breach between the two major-generals 
of the West. An honest, soldierly statement of the 
rumors that had reached St. Louis and of the reports 
and despatches that had not — of Halleck's consequent 
embarrassment and distress, resulting in his having 
reported to McClellan the rumors as they were reported 
to him — these, with as frank and soldierly an expres- 
sion of regret, would have ended the trouble then and 
there. Grant was far too sensible of the weakness that 
had been his, and far too broad, generous and magnani- 
mous to blame any man for believing as Halleck be- 
lieved in the silence that fell after Donelson. 

But Halleck was not man enough for this. He 
could stoop to subterfuge, but not to a subordinate. 
Explanation he had to make, and he who had asked the 
supreme command in the West, " in return for Henry 
and Donelson," excused himself to Grant for having 
relieved him of the charge of operations up the Ten- 
nessee, because the War Department had been worry- 
ing over his failure to communicate, to the end that 
McClellan had ordered his arrest and full investigation 
as to his alleged " condition." All this, said Halleck, 
had been stopped by his personal intervention — all this, 
he had the deep sagacity not to say, had been initiated 
by his personal reports. 

And so after twenty days of confusion, days precious 
to the cause yet lost to the country, Grant resumed 
control at the front, believing McClellan the enemy who 
had downed him in mid career, and Halleck the friend 
who had interposed to save, and somehow Grant did 

187 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

not wish to be indebted to Halleck. As for Halleck, 
there is the old saying that he who has deeply wronged 
a man grows insensibly to hate him. Halleck regarded 
Grant with no such vehement dislike as that, but, hav- 
ing wronged Grant, he was ever ready to accept and wel- 
come evidence or indication that after all he was right. 
And so, on one side at least, there was leaning toward 
the later and renewed humiliation that was to follow 
Shiloh. Of that hereafter. 

On the other hand, consider the attitude of the ag- 
grieved officer in the case and compare it with that of 
his accuser. A salient characteristic of Ulysses Grant 
was absolute truthfulness. His classmates at the Point, 
his associates of the old Fourth Infantry, his chums 
at Fort Columbia, in the days of his pining for wife 
and home, his despondency, his discontent with army 
life and his occasional resort to drink, his stall through- 
out the Civil War and even his political enemies in the 
years that followed, all bear testimony as to that. Rufus 
Ingalls and General Henry L. Hodges, who were his 
house mates at Columbia Barracks in '53, are most 
emphatic on this point. Horace Porter in his inimitable 
Memoirs tells of how the general-in-chief of all the 
armies impressed every one about him with the minute 
accuracy of his every statement. 

It must be insisted that, as every one who intimately 
knew him dwells upon this rather unusual trait, implicit 
confidence should attach to the statement made in his 
own Memoirs as to his relations with Halleck, and it 
emphasizes all that has been claimed for Grant's mod- 
esty, patriotism and singleness of purpose. 

" It is probable that the general opinion was that Smith's 
long services in the army, and his distinguished deeds rend- 
ered him the more proper person for the command. Indeed 
I was rather inclined to this opinion myself at that time, and 
would have served as faithfully under Smith as he had done 
under me." 

188 



FROM DONELSON TO SHILOH 

O that unkind fate had not so soon thereafter 
robbed Grant of that chivalrous second, his ideal com- 
mandant, his ideal supporter! A pall spread over the 
Army of the Tennessee that bowed all heads and sad- 
dened all hearts when, only six weeks later, gallant 
" Charley " Smith breathed his last, almost within long 
gunshot of the field on which Albert Sidney Johnston, 
the lion of the Confederacy, died leading the last charge 
of the Southern line at Shiloh. Physically much alike, 
tall, slender, sinewy, and one at least " handsome as 
Apollo," these two soldiers of the old army were the 
heroes of their men, the objects of their unstinted 
admiration, and in their loss in the midst of the cam- 
paign of the spring of '62, Death, the conqueror, had 
taken equal toll from both North and South on the 
banks of the beautiful Tennessee. 

In the same paragraph in which Grant refers to the 
temporary assignment of Smith to the command, he 
speaks of Halleck's unfounded accusation at his own 
expense. Never until after the war did he learn the 
true story, unearthed by Adam Badeau in some of his 
researches among the records of the War Department. 
Had Grant known the facts when, shortly after Shiloh, 
Halleck a second time relegated the now grim and 
silent soldier to the role of second in command, the 
chances are that Grant would have abandoned the Army 
of the Tennessee and sought another field for his 
activities, as indeed he came within an ace of doing 
when at Corinth ; but here, luckily, Sherman swayed 
and stayed him. Grant remained at his unconspicuous 
post until a few months had demonstrated Halleck's 
utter inaptitude for fighting in the field, and once again 
the command of his old army, now strongly reinforced, 
fell fortunately to Grant. From this time on, until pro- 
moted to still higher sphere, he never left it. 

But meantime what of Shiloh? Driven back by 
Grant from the line. Bowling Green-Donelson-Henry 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

and Columbus, to a line stretching from Memphis to- 
ward Chattanooga, the Confederates had been further 
weakened by Pope's success in March at New Madrid. 
The Memphis & Charleston Railway, running east- 
ward through northern ]\Iississippi and Alabama, was 
crossed at Corinth, Mississippi, by the Mobile & Ohio, 
running east of south from Columbus. This made 
Corinth the strategic centre of the Southwest. Thither 
Sidney Johnston and Breckinridge had marched their 
legions, and thither, as March wore on, Grant desired 
to head his column. Corinth lay some seventeen miles 
west from the great elbow of the Tennessee, the point 
where the stream, after long, placid flowing from the 
Gateway of the Gods through the fertile fields of 
northern Alabama, turns sharply and suddenly north- 
ward and goes winding away to its far junction with the 
Ohio. Navigable for light draft, stem-wheel, river 
boats, its banks were dotted here and there by wood- 
piles, with attendant log cabins ("landings" in the 
vernacular of the river men), points from which 
country roads led away into the interior. Tyler's Land- 
ing, twenty-two miles east of north from Corinth, lay 
just at the northeast corner of Mississippi. Around 
the long bend northward into Tennessee and some ten 
miles by river, lay the little cluster of cabins known 
as Tlamburg. Four miles further and still around 
another bend lay still another little bunch of woodpiles, 
cabins, etc., perched on the west bank, known as Pitts- 
burg. Five miles northward stood Crumps, and about 
nine miles northeastward, and around another bend, 
yet only six miles as the crow flies from the Pittsburg 
Landing, lay on the opposite side the hamlet of 
Savannah. 

Exploring the Tennessee shortly after the surrender 
of Fort Henry, a daring officer of our navy. Lieutenant 
Commander Phelps, had run his gunboat clear to Flor- 
ence, Alabama, and found no foe worth mention. Scout- 

190 



FROM DONELSON TO SHILOH 

ing the wood roads southward, General Smith had pene- 
trated to Savannah, and, steaming southward up the 
river and looking for camp sites for his men, Tecumseh 
Sherman had pitched upon Pittsburg as the place of all 
others. It was only twenty-two miles from Corinth ; it 
was high and dry, drained north and south by little 
creeks between which lay a level plateau, with plenty 
of cleared ground for camps, plenty of wood, water, sun- 
shine and fresh air. " The ground admits of every de- 
fense by a small command, and yet affords admirable 
camping ground for one hundred thousand men," was 
what Sherman wrote to Grant about Patrick's Day, 
the 17th of March, while Grant was still somewhere 
down stream. Only recently restored to command, he 
was not yet restored to health, for he had suffered a 
fit of illness, an attendant, if not the consequence, of 
his mistreatment. Hurlbut's division was the first to 
reach and debark at Pittsburg, for C. F. Smith had 
promptly approved Sherman's suggestion. Easy of ac- 
cess by river, and therefore easily supplied from the 
depots at Jeffersonville and Cairo, it was also an easy 
matter to concentrate there the entire command. It 
was also obviously an excellent point from which to 
strike at Corinth, barely a day's long march distant 
to the southwest. 

And so it happened that while Johnston, Beauregard 
and their associates were already assembling their forces 
at Corinth, an army somewhat smaller in numbers and 
with many new and uninstructed levies, was disembark- 
ing and encamping at Pittsburg Landing. And so it 
happened that, flushed with confidence over their 
triumphs at Donelson, the veteran divisions of McCler- 
nand. Lew Wallace and Smith — the latter without their 
heroic leader, whose illness had already compelled his 
retention at Savannah — the eager men of Sherman, and 
the green, undrilled troops of Prentiss were all encamped 
on the west, or what might be called the enemy's, bank 

191 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

of the stream, and here, without adequate cavalry to 
scout the approaches, or without earthworks to com- 
mand them, the Army of the Tennessee lay impatiently 
awaiting the coming of Buell's untried but finely dis- 
ciplined command — the Army of the Ohio; Grant, eager 
to assume the aggressive at once ; Halleck compelling 
delay. 

A word now as to those two great armies of the 
West, recruited practically from the same communities, 
yet schooled and molded on utterly different lines. Al- 
most from the start the men of the Tennessee had been 
marching, skirmishing and, finally, heavily fighting. 
Their weeks of drill and disciplinary exercises had been 
few. Their weeks of rough and ready life in bivouac, in 
field and forest had been many. As commentators, civil 
and soldier, said of them at Donelson, " They look rough 
as all outdoors." As a gifted correspondent and ob- 
sener later wrote of them, " Hooker once boasted that 
he had the best army on the planet : one could have 
declared that Grant commanded the worst." This was 
simply because in their aggressive Americanism, and in 
the levelling effect of life in the " bush and bivouac," 
the men of Grant's amiy had never learned or had else 
been allowed to drop all scml)lancc of the soldierly pomp, 
precision and ceremony which are regarded as absolutely 
essential to discipline where foreign troops are con- 
cerned, but for which Grant and his " thinking bay- 
onets " had apparently no use whatever. Himself the 
least pretentious and one of the least "military" of 
officers, it naturally came about that a democratic, free- 
and-easy, hail-fellow, fighting spirit animated all ranks 
in the Army of the Tennessee, and Grant approved, and 
men like McClernand, Sherman and Logan, fairly 
gloried in it. 

But very diflferent was the atmosphere of the Army 
of the Ohio. From the very start their leader Buell. 
cold, austere, precise and punctilious, had insisted on 

192 



FROM DONELSON TO SHILOH 

the observance of every military tradition in the training 
of his officers and men. Drills had been incessant. 
Camps were policed and polished until they rivalled 
the tented field of the Corps of Cadets on the Hudson. 
Parade, pomp and ceremony, less dear to Buell than to 
Scott or McClellan, were nevertheless insisted upon as 
absolutely essential to the formative period of raw 
troops. Buell ruled with an iron hand, punishing 
" green " yet influential officers in a way that presently 
won him the fatal antagonism of prominent State ex- 
ecutives — Dennison and " Dick " Yates, but especially 
Morton of Indiana. Yet Buell " stood pat," pursued 
his relentless methods to the last, and with the result 
that by the early spring of '62, with only one fight of 
any consequence to his credit (that of Thomas's brigade 
at Mill Springs), he had evolved an army that would 
have done credit to Frederick the Great. The divisions 
of McCook, Crittenden, Nelson, Wood and Thomas vied 
with each other in the accuracy of their drill, the perfec- 
tion of their arms, uniform and equipment, the pre- 
cision of their evolutions. It was a beautiful command, 
and it contained a host of splendid soldiers. 

But we saw the same spirit in '61 along the Potomac, 
a tendency on part of the few regiments that had fought 
at First Bull Run, and later had been allowed to be- 
come ragged and out-at-elbows, to jeer and deride the 
spick and span regiments presently brigaded or camped 
alongside, and being properly clothed, carefully drilled 
and studiously disciplined, were incessantly taunted as 
" tin " soldiers, bandbox and butterfly battalions, " par- 
lor pets," etc., by their seniors of a month or two only 
in service. The Army of the Tennessee spoke often in 
derision of the Army of the Ohio, never stopping to 
think that they were of precisely the same clay, and 
utterly scorning the theory that they might be a little 
bit better, because of better molding. There is no school 
for war like service in the field, was the faith and dictum 
13 193 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

of the Army of the Tennessee, and heaven knows those 
unkempt, rough-hewn fellows had fought like terriers 
for Grant, their utterly unpretentious and almost equally 
unkempt leader, at Donelson, and now he looked to 
them to do it again. 

Yes, in spite of lack of martial plumage the Army 
of the Tennessee was in high feather, " feeling cocky," 
as they themselves expressed it, disdainful of precau- 
tion, confident of success and scornful of outside as- 
sistance. " The enemy are getting saucy," wrote Sher- 
man, from the front, to Grant at Savannah, but they 
were no more saucy than were the thirty thousand crude 
volunteers in the shapeless blue blouses, or queerly cut 
straight jackets, encamped haphazard between Shiloh 
church on Sherman's front and Pittsburg Landing at the 
rear — between Snake Creek, beyond which lay Lew 
Wallace's division at the north, and the wooded banks of 
Lick Creek at the south. 

It was this stage of the game, perhaps, that Moltke 
had in mind when he spoke of the armies of the North 
and South as " armed mobs." Fully expecting to take 
the initiative the moment Buell was within supporting 
distance, or ITallcck would permit, Grant was still rit 
Savannah, filled with far more anxiety as to the health 
of Smith than the security of the men at the front, 
when on the 5th of April Nelson's division of Buell's 
Army came trudging in. and later in the afternoon 
Buell himself arrived, when, oddly enough, this soul 
of punctilio in his dealings with all inferiors thought it 
unnecessary to call and report to his senior officer — 
Grant. There had been ominous symptoms in the woods 
to the west and southwest of Shiloh. Lew Wallace, too, 
had reported a strong force of Confederates ap- 
parently reconnoitring in front of him on April 4th. 
Sherman's brigade lost an officer to an enterprising 
squadron of Forrest's cavalr}', and some of Sherman's 
men declared they saw the bayonets of infantry further 

194 



FROM DONELSON TO SHILOH 

back in the bush. Rabbits and squirrels came bounding 
in from that direction as though driven from their 
haunts by invading enemies, and still it did not dawn 
upon our generals at the front, or appear to Grant at 
the distant rear, that Sidney Johnston and all his men 
were simply anticipating the move which Grant had 
planned at their expense. In the light of later day 
wisdom, it seems strange that neither to Grant nor Sher- 
man had it occurred that the Confederate leader by 
April ist must know of their presence in his front, with 
an unfordable river behind the Army of the Tennessee, 
and separating it from that of the Ohio, still several 
marches distant. It seems strange that Grant did not 
believe Johnston capable of doing that which he him- 
self would have been sure to do — namely, advance 
promptly to the overthrow of the men of the Tennessee 
before they could be joined by the men of the Ohio ; 
but that is just what Johnston essayed to do, and might 
possibly have made an overwhelming success, but for 
slow and dawdling marches, but for the fighting spirit 
of that " devil-may-care outfit," the Army of the Ten- 
nessee. Starting on April 2nd, with Shiloh church less 
than twenty miles away, not until Sunday morning, 
April 6th, were his exuberant, untrained, unterrified 
Southerners straightened out in three long lines and 
ready to attack. Then at last the advance was sounded, 
and at half after six the memorable Battle of Shiloh — 
the bloodiest in the West, started in good earnest. " Be- 
fore night," said one of their gifted leaders, " we'll 
water our horses in the Tennessee or hell." 



CHAPTER XIX 
SHILOH— THE ONE SURPRISE 

The nation knows the story of that tumultuous Sun- 
day meeting at Shiloh church. Many of Sherman's 
men were still abed when the startling summons came — 
a reveille such as they had never heard before. The 
veterans, as they called themselves, of McClernand and 
Smith were less taken aback. They had heard the far- 
famed, far-reaching rebel yell at Donelson. Moreover, 
they were camped far to the rear of the foremost bri- 
gades and had abundant time in which to breakfast and 
form ranks and march to aid their fellows at the front. 
The men of Prentiss, many of whom never yet had 
rammed home a ball cartridge or felt the kick of a 
Springfield, had been called to amis at dawn, and were 
listening in amaze to the crash of musketry and the 
car-piercing chorus to their right, where the tide of as- 
sault first broke on the lines of Sherman's centre, and 
the first sight of the blood- red battle flags, the first 
shell bursting in their midst from the haze of sulphur 
smoke along the fringe of timber in front of them, 
shook their nerve and stampeded horses, mules and 
many a man, and yet in all that desperate day's work, 
no more desperate, determined fighting was done than 
later by Prentiss himself and the devoted men whom he 
was able to rally about him. 

It is as difficult to describe that morning's battle as 
to account for it. It seems incredible now that the 
Southern host had been able to march up, form for 
action within a mile of our lines, and do it with so much 
undisciplined straggling, shooting and shouting that 
Beauregard begged of his chief to call off the whole 
affair and hark back to Corinth. It was impossible, said 

196 



SHILOH— THE ONE SURPRISE 

he, that the federal troops could be in ignorance, even 
though Jordan, his chief of staff, assured him that he 
had ascertained that Sherman's men were not en- 
trenched — were utterly unsuspicious. " It is incredible," 
said Beauregard, " it means that Buell has reinforced 
Grant — that they have full seventy thousand lying in 
wait for us — that they are simply leading us into a trap." 
But Sidney Johnston had come to fight and fight hard, 
as heaven knows they fought, and could he have struck 
two days, or even one day earlier, before Nelson, Crit- 
tenden and McCook, of Buell's army, were fairly within 
supporting distance, the Army of the Tennessee might 
have been driven into the river from which it took its 
name. The rains, the roads and the flooded ravines 
were all against Johnston, and when he struck, although 
he struck an unprepared and unexpectant line, and sent 
its cowards and weaklings whirling toward the river, 
he presently found himself battering at tough and elastic 
barriers that hit back as hard as he, that yielded slowly, 
yet dealt heavy blows even in retiring — the " solid men " 
of the Tennessee that finally held fast and firm, for the 
Northerners had still their chosen leader; the South- 
erners had lost theirs. 

Buell it will be remembered, had been marching 
since mid March to join Grant on the Tennessee; the 
latter had been halted there waiting Halleck's pleasure. 
Little by little the force on the west bank had been in- 
creased until by April 2nd Grant's daily visits showed 
him five divisions in camp between the bounding creeks, 
and still another, Lew Wallace's, to the northward. The 
old divisions, Hurlbut's, McClernand's and Smith's 
(W. H. Wallace commanding), camped on the interior 
lines; the new divisions. Sherman's and Prentiss' — the 
latter still incomplete— had been thrust further out to- 
ward the south and west. This seems strange. Halleck 
was expected any day. He had written Buell he would 
start " the first of the coming week," but Grant had 

197 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

looked for his earlier coming. Intrenching as a pre- 
caution had been suggested to Grant, and his gifted 
young engineer, McPherson, had been directed to make 
prehminary tracings. But, " what's the use?" was the 
other side of the question. " We are going to advance 
to-morrow or the next day." It seems never to have 
occurred to any one that they might be going to retreat, 
or that any one contemplated such a thing as attacking 
tiiem. Grant and Sherman, the two schooled generals 
at the front, are explicit on this head. On Saturday, the 
5th, said Sherman to Grant, '' I do not apprehend any- 
thing like an attack on our position." On Saturday 
evening the 5th, said Grant to Halleck (both of course 
in despatches) : " I have scarcely the faintest idea of 
an attack (general) being made upon us." And so when 
twelve hours later the general attack was made, although 
Sherman has stoutly maintained they were not sur- 
prised, it may be hazarded that they were astonished. 
The wonder of it is and was that, being unintrenched, 
unexpectant and almost unprepared, the Army of the 
Tennessee as a whole put up the magnificent fight that 
it unquestionably did. That was, after all, the greatest 
surprise of Shiloh. 

Yes, even though two colonels of new regiments ran 
like the rabbits that came darting in, and their men saw 
and followed. Yes, even though stragglers and slightly 
wounded to the number of three to four thousand hud- 
dled under the bank back at the Landing, in panic and 
in terror. Yes, even though one light battery, officers 
and men, abandoned guns, caissons and everything, and 
fled in dismay when the first Southern shell exploded 
in their midst. Yes, even though there was conster- 
nation and confusion in the rear of many a brigade and 
battalion, yet, acting often independently, brigades, 
regiments and detached batteries fought fearlessly, 
savagely, long hours at a time, often against superior 
numbers, filling the ravines with Confederate dead and 

198 



SHILOH— THE ONE SURPRISE 

wounded, inflicting damage fully equal to that which 
they sustained ; yet, in the thick of the morning battle, 
as Sherman's lines slowly fell back, McClernand, with 
his Donelson veterans in line, advanced sturdily, while 
everything to their right and left was in sullen retreat, 
and actually checked, then forcefully drove, a flushed 
and rejoiceful enemy full half a mile back upon its 
reserves. And yet, again, after Grant's arrival on the 
field, and his placid, cigar-pufiing conferences with gen- 
eral after general as he rode the rear of his remaining 
lines, there were instances of tenacious " stands " in spite 
of heavy loss, inflicting heavier loss upon the foe, to the 
end that by dozens there were Southern commands so 
fearfully crippled that what was left of them had to be 
withdrawn from the fight. And yet, when the Con- 
federates were enabled at points to burst a way through 
and completely outflank sturdily battling brigades along 
the Union line, there were many commands that took 
heart from the quiet, imperturbable leader who came 
along the lines bidding them " hang on, we'll beat them 
yet." There was even one command that because of 
his stern order, " Hold this at all hazards," clung to 
the crest of that wooded ravine (named " The 
Hornets' Nest," because of the stings innumerable re- 
ceived there), fought until everything was gone but 
honor, and then and not until then did gallant Prentiss, 
hemmed on every side, surrender his surviving two 
thousand to an overwelming force. 

It was almost at the same instant that another gallant 
ofificer, W. H. Wallace, heading Smith's old division, 
met his mortal wound. It was here in front of our 
weakest division in point of battle craft, that Albert 
Sidney Johnston felt it his duty to personally lead a 
half broken brigade in final assault, and there receive 
through the boot leg a bullet that tore the artery, a 
scratch he disdained to notice at the moment, but from 

199 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

which the heroic soldier bled to death before any one 
about him realized that he was even hit. 

It was just at half past two of this tremendous day 
that the word began to whisper along the Southern line 
that the lion-hearted leader was no more. It stayed 
for an hour the battle. It gave Grant and his chief 
of artillery time to align half a score of batteries along 
the ridge south of Pittsburg Landing. It gave a breath- 
ing spell to the hard-pressed men of Smith and Hurl- 
but, but away to the centre and right, to the north 
and northwest, the crashing fray went steadily on, 
McClemand and Sherman fighting hard and falling 
slowly, doggedly, back from ridge to ridge — Sherman 
looking ever to his imperilled right and for the coming 
of Lew Wallace, unaccountably detained. 

We know the story of that momentous mischance. 
Grant had left his breakfast table, and the as yet un- 
seen Buell at Savannah, had ordered Nelson to march 
at once to a point opposite Pittsburg Landing, and left 
word for Buell to hurry forward his foremost divisions 
due that very day, had then boarded his little steam- 
boat and forced a way up stream through the multitude 
of river craft, had stopped a few moments at Crumps 
to bid Lew Wallace put his whole division in readiness 
to act, and then had steamed on again to be greeted by 
the sight of hundreds of skulkers lining the river bank 
for half a mile — a sight to stir most soldiers into flights 
of fury and blasphemy, but that could not provoke him 
to even mild indulgence: the nearest he came to it was 
to refer to one hopelessly terrified group as " those 
poor devils." Once ashore, the first thing was to see 
that the ammunition train was in readiness to supply 
the soldiery at the fighting front. Then, mounting, he 
rode forward througii the dreary woods, through for- 
lorn and dejected throngs of stragglers, skulkers and 
slightly wounded — even in the moment of thrilling vic- 
tory the rear of a fighting line is a depressing sight — 

200 



SHILOH— THE ONE SURPRISE 

and emerged after this nerve-racking plunge, placid, 
serene, confident. The rebound must come, he argued, 
when the enemy can drive no further, and the enemy 
at the rate he had been losing w^ould be in no shape to 
resist once he got them going the other way, and of 
going never a doubt had he. All day long until near 
sundown the battle raged here, there and everywhere, 
with alternations of rest and, in places, of reformation, 
with the gradual result that the battle line was squeezed 
into a semi-circle, a mile or so back from the camps 
where Prentiss and Sherman had uneasily passed the 
previous night. But now the South had fought to a 
breathless finish. Its men could do no more. They 
were swept, too, on their right flank by the guns 
aligned at Webster's ridge. They had done their best, 
but were halted short of the goal posts. The Army of 
the Tennessee now held, and with the morning would 
be ready to hit. 

And then with night Nelson, of the Ohio, was cross- 
ing by boat, and Crittenden was close behind, and 
McCook, with his finely disciplined division, with all the 
precision of the drill ground, was just marching up 
from Savannah. Lew Wallace, too, soon after dark, 
was in line at last on the right flank, and Grant, under- 
neath the calm exterior, was simply burning with eager- 
ness for morning to come. Then though he might 
not recover guns and prisoners already spirited away to 
the Southern rear, he meant to recover every inch of 
the ground and to drive in utter flight the victors of the 
Sunday battle, leaving a bloody trail behind them. 

That night he sought a few hours' sleep at the 
Landing, but the moans and suffering of the wounded 
were too much for him. He groped his way out of 
hearing and lay in a poncho and blanket under a spread- 
ing tree. That night the guns of the Tyler and Lexing- 
ton sent huge shells screeching every few minutes up 
the peopled ravine which encircled the Union left, scat- 

20I 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

tering- death among the would-be sleepers of the wearied 
Southern host. Their dead and wounded fully equalled, 
if not exceeded, those of the Union force, and in point 
of generals the cost to them had been as ten to the 
Union one. That night it rained in torrents, but at last 
the morning came and with it the initiative. The first 
gun bellowed from the Union side and with it Grant 
and his drenched, shivering but determined men, swept 
forward along the battle lines of the night before — Lew 
Wallace and Siierman to the west and northwest, 
McClernand toward the centre, and Nelson and Crit- 
tenden of the Ohio, facing southward, and backed by 
the regular batteries which Mendenhall and Terrell had 
managed in spite of mud to bring up with their divisions. 
Fan-like these forces spread outward from the com- 
mon centre where they lay cramped throughout the 
night, and long before noonday, in spite of hard fight- 
ing everywhere, especially where Sherman's men a 
second time battled over the fields of Shiloh Church, 
the Southern lines were splitting apart and being hurled 
backward through the very ravines and thickets they 
had carried with yells of triumph but the day before. 

Buell. too, had reached the field, and to him, at 
Sherman's station, appeared Grant, covered with mud 
and mire, sore from injuries received when his horse 
stumbled over a fallen timber the previous day, and 
stifTened from a long night in the pouring rain. Little 
like a victor looked Grant, at the moment. Little 
like victor^' looked the field, yet there was the serene 
confidence in Grant's manner which told of both, and, 
just twenty-four hours after Sidney Johnston breathed 
his last — just before three o'clock on this second day of 
bloody Shiloh — the Southern second in command, now 
become chief on the field, gave the order which ever 
since early dawn he knew to be inevitable, and, still 
valiantly fronting the fierce attack of the Union lines, 
Beauregard slowly withdrew his bleeding divisions 

202 



SHILOH— THE ONE SURPRISE 

from the field of their fruitless effort. Except for 
half a dozen guns and a thousand prisoners, the net re- 
sult of the tremendous essay, the Army of the South 
had gained nothing at Shiloh, and what were these 
when weighed in the balance with the gallant spirit 
lost to the Southern cause forever? 

Sundown of April 7th proclaimed Grant a second 
time victor in pitched battle, and there were really two 
days or more in which he was permitted to so regard 
himself, and to accept the congratulations of Sherman 
and McPherson. It is even recorded of him that he 
was human enough to indulge in a brief moment of 
triumph on meeting in the person of Major Pitzman, 
of St. Louis, the nephew of the successful competitor 
for the county surveyorship several years before. 
Salomon, the local favorite and politician, easily won 
that contest, and was now serving somewhere in the 
southwest with the rank of colonel. " Hello, Pitzman," 
cried the senior major-general with a shrug of the 
shoulders that displayed the double stars, " you see I've 
beaten Salomon after all ! " 

But then came Halleck, the newspapers, new def- 
amation, detraction and presently new humiliation. 
For the second time the hardest and most determined 
fighter of all our generals, east or west, was made to 
sufifer at the hands of his superiors, the press, and even 
the people whom he had so loyally and gallantly served. 



CHAPTER XX 
THE SORROW AFTER SHILOH 

There was no pursuit of Beauregard. The rains 
and hails of the clouded heavens deluged his wearied 
men and drenched and chilled his helpless wounded, 
dragging back to Corinth over those wretched roads. 
A few cavalr)' went out and reported the foe as falling 
back. Then Shemian was sent to keep in touch, was 
fiercely rebuked by Forrest's horsemen, and wisely, 
perhaps, refrained from further venture. Roth armies 
had vast repairs to make before either would be fit for 
further fight, though the Army of the Ohio, it might 
be hazarded, could have been entrusted at once with 
the duty of bayonetting Beauregard out of Corinth. 
I'uell and his five fine divisions (for Wood and Thomas 
joined him by the 8th) would probably have been too 
many for what Beauregard had left. 

But Halleck was coming at once to take command in 
person. He had expected to find two armies. Grant's 
and Buell's, fine, fit and ready for action. He found 
Grant's sorely battered and depleted, but no more so 
than was Beauregard's, in spite of Buell's slur. Buell 
reported that when he reached Pittsburg Landing Grant 
was whipped, and that there were barely five thousand 
combatants left to him. In fact Buell always believed 
that he, not Grant, restored the battle. 

Now Halleck came to refit and reorganize. Grant's 
idea would have been to bur>' the dead and to leave 
the sick and wounded to the care of the Sanitary Com- 
mission. Grant would have shaken himself loose from 
the leash, gathered up all the sound men on the southwest 
bank and started forthwith on the heels of Beauregard. 
Grant probably would and could have had Corinth be- 

204 



THE SORROW AFTER SHILOH 

fore April was ten days older, but Halleck would have 
nothing further done until his coming, and that coming 
came not until April nth, four days after the last shot 
at Shiloh. By this time Beauregard was once again 
within the works about Corinth, and wiring for re- 
inforcements. By this time, too, Ilalleck was again 
listening to calumny illimitable at the expense of Grant, 
and the columns of the Northern press overflowed 
with it. 

All the skulkers, all the human rabbits who had 
fled at the first shot, all the envious, all the self-seeking 
had their tales to tell of luxurious dawdling and drink- 
ing at the rear while his men shivered at the far front, 
of neglect of every precaution (wherein there was a 
vestige of truth), of tender handling of " rebel sympa- 
thizers," of returning to their cruel masters of weeping 
runaway slaves who had taken refuge in his camps, 
of favoritism toward Sherman, Smith and fellow West 
Pointers, and ostracism of gallant and deserving volun- 
teers, notably from Illinois. One could readily find the 
source of most of these, and all of these Grant heard, 
and some of this he read, always in submissive silence, 
thinking sadly of the efifect produced at home — of the 
sorrow, distress and indignation in the loved faces about 
that distant fireside. 

These were hard times for hard-headed old Jesse, 
who, from expressing himself openly and sometimes 
contemptuously as to the usefulness of his first-born 
for two or three years before the war, had taken to 
the opposite extreme, and until sternly checked by the 
son, had himself been fighting doughty battles in print. 
These were mournful days for Julia Dent, gathering 
her brood about her knees and bidding them pay no 
heed to the taunts and jeers of playmates, taught by 
envious elders to stab and wound the childish breasts. 
These were days of temporary triumph to certain sub- 
ordinates, secretly hostile — men who dared now to 

205 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

submit their reports of Shiloh direct to Halleck, in- 
stead of, as military usage and regulation required, 
direct to Grant; and Halleck, so far from rebuking, re- 
ceived, tacitly encouraged, and presently, with com- 
ments of his own, forwarded to the War Department — 
all to the end that it was Halleck's, not Grant's, report 
of the great battle that was filed at Washington. The 
commander on the spot, flouted by some of his juniors, 
and slighted by his one senior, being thus deprived of 
much of the needed material, declined ever to submit 
a report. Halleck had taken this duty, as indeed he took 
the command, off his subordinate's hands. Over these 
days of new sorrows, slights and wrongs, we may better 
draw the veil. Of earthly witnesses to his sorrow — told 
only in his letters to his wife and to Elihu Washburnc, 
and barely alluded to in a talk with Sherman — even 
among his staff there seemed to have been but one or 
two. These were matters on which he felt too deeply 
to trust himself to speak. He knew by this time that 
even in far-away Washington there were men who, self- 
seeking and resentful of his growing influence, had done 
their worst to poison the minds of both Lincoln and 
Stanton against him. He did not know — what infinite 
cheer it would have brought him — that when Stanton 
sent to the President the paper setting forth the story 
of Grant's intoxication, and urging his removal, the 
paper came promptly back endorsed : " I cannot spare 
this man — he fights." 

However, let us tuni and see how Halleck took up 
the reins snatched from the hands of the farmer- 
soldier, and what he did in the brief time in which his 
headquarters were actually in the field. The critic 
and analyst of many another man's campaign had now 
come to conduct one of his own. 

Less than twenty miles away from the thronging 
camps where by the ist of May Halleck had gathered 
one hundred thousand men, crouching behind well- 

206 



THE SORROW AFTER SHILOH 

planned fortifications lay the beaten army of Beaure- 
gard. With Halleck were Grant, Buell, Pope, Rose- 
crans, Sherman, Thomas and a score of division and 
brigade commanders now famous in the West — Pope 
fresh from his triumph at Island No. lo, which Halleck 
had officially proclaimed a splendid achievement, " ex- 
ceeding in boldness and brilliancy all other operations 
of the war," a something " memorable in military 
history and sure to be admired by future generations." 
Yet historians and future generations, so far, seem to 
mention it but seldom in comparison with Donelson. 
But Pope was ever a pet of Halleck, a man much of his 
own kidney, except that Pope was an impetuous, though 
later a luckless, fighter, while Halleck never fought at 
all. Just as after Donelson Halleck sought to divert 
attention from Grant to Smith — the far more chivalric 
figure — so now he sought to exalt Pope and to " shelve " 
Grant. Wisely, probably, he broke up the existing bar- 
rier and merged the armies of the Ohio and the Ten- 
nessee, shifting divisions from one to the other, then 
reorganizing the mass into three grand divisions, right, 
left and centre. The right he placed under George H. 
Thomas, senior major-general of the Army of the Ohio. 
The centre he gave to Buell himself; the left, and as 
luck would have it, the one nearest to Corinth when 
finally they closed in, he gave to Pope. To Grant was 
assigned no command whatever. Designated in orders 
as " second in command," he was destined for the time 
to occupy a position, as pointed out by Colonel Church, 
about as influential and distinguished as that of Vice- 
President, or, as his old comrades of the Tennessee 
would have it, of a fifth wheel to a farm wagon. 

And with his great army thus reorganized, refitted 
and again ready for the field, the man of whom so very 
much was expected, and whom the soldiers proceeded 
to dub " Old Brains," because of supposed yet unproved 
superiority to their immediate leaders, now proceeded 

207 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

to the reduction of Corinth and the crushing of Beaure- 
gard, whose force on paper approximated his own, but 
in fact was not much more than half. Away across 
the Alleghenies and down on the peninsula between the 
York and James, and just about this time, a single divi- 
sion of Southern troops led by that genial honvivant and 
famous dinner giver of the old Army, " Prince John " 
Magruder, had been sufficient to stop George B. 
McClellan, backed by the entire Army of the Potomac. 
If only their beloved and admired "Little Mac" could 
have been induced to let them go, they could have 
swept past Yorktown and well nigh swallowed Magru- 
der. But McClellan was an Engineer, steeped in siege 
craft, and, to the hilarious glee of all Richmond, there 
he sat him down before Magmder, sent for batteries, 
guns and ponderous mortars, and lost a precious month. 
Almost in like manner, here at the far west, " Old 
Brains," with the slow, stealthy movement of some 
huge boa charming a fluttering pigeon, began that solemn 
and cautious advance upon the doomed strategic centre 
of northeast Mississippi. Each day the mighty army 
made a mile or so ; each night it was made sure of it by 
heavy intrenchments, until from Shiloh Church the 
face of the earth southwestward was one vast zigzag 
of corrugations; until April had blossomed into May, 
and May had seen two changes of its moon, and then 
at last, twenty miles in twenty days, the great army 
coiled down in front of the entrenchments of Beaure- 
gard along the heights overlooking Philips Creek, and 
blinked its eyes at the distant chimneys of Corinth, and 
wondered what would come next. "If it took us a 
month with no opposition to make a day's march," asked 
a Tennessee man of Tecumseh Sherman, furiously 
chewing and spitting over a dry cigar, " how long's it 
going to take us to get in yonder, if they show fight? " 
All the same the constrictor had at last its grip on 
Corinth. 

208 



THE SORROW AFTER SHILOH 

And all this time, chafing inwardly, but silent and 
subordinate, Grant had followed the movements of his 
massive chief, neglected and ignored except by a certain 
few of his former comrades of the Tennessee, and ever 
attended, faithfully and loyally by Rawlins and Rowley. 
Other staff officers he had, but while every day was 
adding to the usefulness of Rawlins and the loyal energy 
of Rowley, it seems that two or three of the original 
staff might better have been left at home. There was 
something almost intolerable in existing conditions, and 
concerning them Grant unbosomed himself to his now 
devoted friend and comrade, the nervous, irascible, but 
most loyal Sherman. Here he was, by presidential 
order, the actual commander of the District of the 
Tennessee, yet, at the beck of the general commanding 
the Military Division of the Mississippi, required to fol- 
low meekly in his train without command, without 
escort, without functions of any kind. Thrice after 
Donelson he had asked to be relieved from service 
under Halleck, and Halleck had temporized and 
placated. Now again he had time to read the volume 
of marked copies or clippings from the Northern press, 
and realized how numerous and active were his enemies, 
how few and passive seemed his friends, for, as he him- 
self would not deign to enter into newspaper con- 
troversy, they had followed suit. He therefore turned 
again to Sherman, who was very busy beating the bush 
at the far right flank, and reaching out for the Mobile 
and Ohio Railway. Beginning those thirty days as a 
division commander under the orders of his classmate 
Thomas, Sherman had developed more pent-up, high 
pressure energy than half a dozen other division com- 
manders combined, and yet Sherman found time to 
plead with his now deposed superior and to urge him 
to bear and forbear a little longer until the country 
could hear the truth and Halleck listen to reason. Sher- 
man, having known Halleck in San Francisco days, had 
14 209 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

higher hopes of him than had Grant, who now claimed 
that self-respect demanded that he quit the service, so 
far as the jurisdiction of Halleck was concerned. But 
Sherman prevailed, and Grant, luckily for the cause 
and the country, agreed to bide his time. 

Corinth fell on the 30th, but Beauregard and his 
sixty thousand had slipped serenely out of the coils. 
Pope, being southernmost, followed swift and smote 
hard at the rearmost. Halleck stayed at captured 
Corinth and wired as to his captures, which consisted 
of abandoned earthworks, an empty town, but, of course, 
a great strategic position. So far as men and munitions 
of war were concerned, he had not taken a tenth part 
of what Grant garnered at Donelson. Still, something 
might yet be done further south, whither Pope was pur- 
suing and where the woods for miles were reported by 
division commanders as full of stragglers from the 
enemy, half starved and wholly ready to surrender. 
" Not less than ten thousand are thus scattered about 
who will come in within a day or two," wired Pope to 
his chief, whereupon that strategist and statistician 
telegraphed to an exultant and rejoiceful war secre- 
tary at Washington : " General Pope is thirty miles 
south of Corinth, pushing the enemy hard. lie already 
reports ten thousand prisoners and deserters from the 
enemy, and fifteen thousand stand of arms captured," 
and great was the sensation throughout the North, and 
greater still the depth of disappointment and disgust 
when it tumed out to be, to put it mildly, premature. 

And thus did Halleck capture Corinth and report 
the results. It is safe to say that Grant would have 
done both otherwise. 



CHAPTER XXI 
GRANT AND RAWLINS 

The summer of '62 was ushered in and from easlj 
to west Union loving people were reading explanations 
and reaping disappointment. McClellan made slow 
progress on the Peninsula. Halleck had divided his 
forces and sent them hither and yon. Six weeks after 
Corinth the War Department summoned to Washing- 
ton the leader of the left wing at Corinth, and sent John 
Pope to command the left-over and scattered corps 
McClellan had not succeeded in taking to the Peninsula. 
One month later still it sent for Halleck and placed him 
chief in command of all the armies in the field, with his 
headquarters at Washington. Pope, hastening forth, 
had established his, as he announced, in saddle. Thus 
two men from the West had come to take high com- 
mand in the East, and the Army of the Potomac, devoted 
to its own commanders, could hardly be expected to 
effusively welcome the newcomers. 

Pope's first essay was a spirited address to his new 
army, made up in part at least of men that had served 
in and with the Army of the Potomac, and were proud 
of it. Pope shared a not uncommon delusion that about 
the only fighting yet done was in the W^est, and in his 
address telling the Eastern armies that he came from 
where they were accustomed to seeing only the backs 
of the enemy, something the Easterners had yet to ex- 
perience, and bidding them drop words and methods 
hitherto in vogue and to learn the language and ways of 
the men of the Mississippi Valley, he succeeded only in 
rousing the antagonism of most of the Union Army then 
in Virginia. Then he set forth to hammer Jackson and 
Longstreet, and by the end of August his entire Army 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

was flung back to the Potomac, while a victorious enemy 
was marching for the heart of Mar}^land. It took less 
than ten weeks to end Pope's career as a field general. 
He had been appointed brigadier in the regular army 
in mid July, thereby making him a permanency in the 
service, but a command was found for him in the far 
northwest where he had no more fighting to do, and 
with McDowell, also deposed and relieved, he found 
leisure to study and criticise the campaigns of their 
brethren at the front, something in which each excelled. 
Few better exponents of the theory and art of war 
were ever found in these United States than Halleck, 
McClellan, Pope and McDowell, but for some strange 
reason their methods proved inoperative with American 
troops against troops even more aggressively American, 
and over American topography in the sovereign State 
of Virginia. There the whirlwind tactics of Stonewall 
Jackson swept our legions from the field, and there com- 
mander after commander of the Army of the Potomac 
found the road to Richmond blocked and impassable, 
until at last " the stone the builders rejected " came 
rough quarried from the distant West, and these and 
others who had signally failed, yet could concede noth- 
ing but luck to him who had '* in spite of foes " suc- 
ceeded, stood at last as silent spectators of the closing 
campaign, the final furling of the colors of the hard 
fighting, hard dying Confederacy, as the sword of Lee, 
the worshipped leader, lay at the mercy of the home- 
spun and indomitable Grant. 

But meanwhile other campaigns had to be planned 
and fought, other focmen had to be overthrown, but 
when Henry W. Halleck was summoned from the West 
to Washington — and well did President Lincoln under- 
stand this — Ulysses Grant stepped at once from second 
to supreme command in the Valley of the Mississippi, 
and it would seem as though the great President who 
was so patient in council, so painstaking in argument. 



GRANT AND RAWLINS 

and so set in mind when once his mind was made, had 
determined that in spite of every story they could bring 
to him, the best leader and fighter of them all was the 
stoop-shouldered, silent soldier from northwestern 
Illinois. And so again in the summer of '62, called 
from his headquarters at Memphis, Grant rode the lines 
at the far front, puffing almost continually at a long 
black cigar, seeing everything there was to be seen and 
saying next to nothing until about the evening camp fire, 
when he sat in conference with Rawlins and felt that he 
could open his lips awhile without fear of misquotation. 

By mid-summer of '62 the great army with which 
Halleck had crawled on Corinth had been broken up 
and scattered, and Buell, with most of his old division 
chiefs in the Army of the Ohio, was already in eastern 
Tennessee, looking after the menacing force under 
Bragg. In the West Grant found himself with much 
of the old Army of the Tennessee. Among his division 
commanders, fortunately for him, was his stanch ally 
and subordinate, Sherman. Among them, too, were 
others, like Rosecrans and C. S. Hamilton, who had 
risen rapidly from civil pursuits which had occupied 
their time and thoughts since the brief years of service 
after graduation, and both Rosecrans and Hamilton, 
though both men of brains and ability, had characteristics 
that made them " difficult " as subordinates. Hamilton 
was a classmate, a fellow infantryman in the Mexican 
war, yet not one of Grant's intimates. Two of the 
division commanders, prominent at Shiloh and closely 
attached to Grant's fortunes or misfortunes from the 
start, were Hurlbut and McClernand. 

It will be remembered that in the quartette of Illinois' 
original brigadiers. Grant was named foremost. Pren- 
tiss, the third in rank, quit his command, as we have 
seen, almost at the outset, rather than serve under the 
orders of Grant — an error he probably long regretted and 
surely atoned for at Shiloh. Hurlbut and McClernand 

213 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

were from the start envious of Grant, and the fact that 
he was a West Pointer, of long service in the army, and 
of distinguished record as a fighter in the ]\Iexican war, 
seemed to weigh with them not at all. That each had 
been of more consequence in civil life than the humble 
clerk at Galena was all that either Hurlbut or INIcCler- 
nand seemed able to consider, and it resulted that from 
the former only half-hearted and perfunctory service 
could be expected, while, as it soon transpired, from the 
latter there emanated many of the reports to Grant's 
discredit. Before long, therefore, as will be shown, the 
embers of envy and dislike were fanned to the flame of 
downright defiance. 

With such elements to contend with among his gen- 
erals it was more than essential that the commander 
should be surrounded by a trustworthy and efficient 
staff, but here as hereafter, it seemed that Grant lacked 
the gift of estimating men at their true worth. Ab- 
solutely loyal, straightforward and simple himself, he 
doubtless expected the same traits in others, and appears 
to have been quite at a loss what to do when the men of 
his choice proved unreliable. Grant hated to give up 
in anything — even his faith in a friend. 

By the time luka and Corinth had been fought and 
the winter wore on, over and over again the general 
had found it necessary to suppress some of his sub- 
ordinates, and to rid himself of at least one who quar- 
relled so much with others that for a time they seemed 
to lose sight of the supreme importance of concentrating 
every energy on the enemy. By this time, too. Grant's 
most loyal adherents had determined that it was also 
necessary to rid him of certain of his staff, whose in- 
fluence both with him and with the army was the reverse 
of good. 

But here lay the difficulty. That very loyalty which 
Grant ever displayed toward superiors in rank or sta- 
tion, he extended to those whom he had called to his 

214 



GRANT AND RAWLINS 

side. Once having given his faith to man or woman, 
there it ckmg. Once having chosen a man for his miH- 
tary family, he could see no evil in and would hear no 
ill of him. Later still in his career this blindness and 
deafness or dullness as to the moral traits of those 
about him — this disbelief of any suggestion detrimental 
to a man of his choice — led to consequences infinitely 
more serious than those which threatened him in the 
fall of '62. 

But these were sufficiently serious to be the cause of 
grave apprehension to the men who best loved and 
served him. McPherson, his brainy, brilliant engineer, 
at Grant's own recommendation had been made a briga- 
dier in the summer, and this promotion had been fol- 
lowed in October by another which made him major- 
general commanding a division of volunteers — still, of 
course, under Grant. But this took him out of the staff, 
where in many ways Rawlins had learned to lean upon 
him. Chief of that staff was Rawlins, the big Galena 
lawyer, whom Grant had had the consummate good 
fortune to select in '61, and Rawlins deserved and has 
had biographers of his own. 

A charcoal burner for some years of his life, earning 
money enough to sit for two terms in the Rock River 
Seminary and then to study law, Rawlins had pushed 
into politics, had been a Douglas Democrat in i860, 
but became the most fervent of Unionists when the war 
broke out in '61. He had prospered modestly, had mar- 
ried, and might have been earlier in the field and lost to 
Grant, but for the illness and death of his wife. When 
he joined his quiet-mannered general at Cairo he knew 
nothing of military matters, but much of men. His 
recent bereavement, added to austere views of his own, 
kept him aloof from camp festivities of any kind. He 
learned all he could of army methods, of papers, reports, 
returns, etc., from Grant, and soon mastered all mere 
matters of routine. Then he began taking more active 

215 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

part in the details and doings about him. He was 
" bold, virile and patriotic," as General James H. Wilson 
described him, and so imbued with a sense of the im- 
mensity of the duties before them all, and the impor- 
tance of bending every energy to the maintenance of 
the Union, that he could tolerate no laggard and brook 
no laxity. 

Knowing Grant thoroughly and well, delighting in 
his strength and dreading his main weakness, Rawlins 
stood by and clung to and watched over his commander 
with a fidelity and a vigilance which warded ofT many an 
insidious enemy, and which resulted, as Grant said in 
'63, in making Rawlins " more nearly indispensable to 
me than anybody else." When it is remembered that 
by '63 Grant had assembled about him a stafT really 
great in their personal and professional traits, and all 
this time, too, Sherman and Mcl'herson were in close 
touch and communion with him, it shows that Rawlins 
was the born manager Grant believed him. There, at 
least he made no mistake as to his man. A year later in 
the winter of '63 and 4, Grant wrote to Slierman the 
famous letter saying : " To you and to McPherson " 
his gratitude was mainly due, but he never wrote or 
told — possibly he never fully realized — how very much 
he owed to Rawlins. 

By the fall of '62, however, Rawlins was so thor- 
oughly assured in his own ix)sition that he felt the time 
had come when he could properly, and with some promise 
of success, proceed against the " detrimentals " who still 
clung like military parasites to tlie fortunes of their 
commander, and who might yet drag him down. It 
was just at this time that there came to him from the 
army in the East that other son of Illinois, a soldier, and 
the son of a soldier who seemed to beget nothing but 
soldiers (for three brothers were from the beginning 
of the war gallant and brilliant officers), one of them 
rising to almost dazzling prominence and distinction. 

216 




Cupyri^;ht by D. Applelon tV Co 

MAJOR-GENERAL JAMES H. WILSON 

At the dose of the Civil War 
From his own memoirs, "Under the Old Flag' 



GRANT AND RAWLINS 

The father had served with Lincoln in the Black Hawk 
war, and was known of old to most men in the history 
of the Prairie State. It was partly because of this 
that Rawlins so cordially welcomed the young lieutenant, 
Wilson, of the Engineers, when he reported for duty at 
Grant's headquarters, highly recommended by the gen- 
erals he had served in the East. 

The war was nearly a year and a half old when 
James H. Wilson joined Grant's staff. He had been 
graduated at the Point in i860 under the eyes of the 
tactician Hardee, had served with McPherson on the 
Pacific coast, had been hurried East with him in '61, 
and after vigorous service on the Atlantic seaboard, had 
made the Antietam campaign with McClellan. He had 
also made close and curious study of the several generals 
with whom he had been brought in contact, and it is fair 
to assume that he had heard something of the talk 
about Grant indulged in about McClellan's headquarters. 
It so happened that Grant had gone to Memphis when 
this new arrival reported to Rawlins, the chief of staff. 
It is characteristic of Rawlins that he should have 
cordially greeted the newcomer, and then gone straight 
to the heart of the matter which at that moment was 
giving him most concern. " I know all about you," he 
said: " I knew your father and I'm damned glad you've 
come." Rawlins, it may be observed, was often " rude 
in speech and little versed in the set phrase " of polite 
society. Rawlins was as frankly profane as Grant was 
characteristically pure. 

And then Rawlins opened his heart to the young 
West Pointer, told him that there were men on Grant's 
stafif who were sure to harm him sooner or later. " I 
hear you don't drink," said he, and went on to ask 
Wilson to enter into an alliance with him, offensive and 
defensive, against the evil elements about them. A 
total abstainer in the army in those days was a rarity. 
Wilson in his youth had become convinced that alcohol 

217 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

in any shape is a bar to efficiency. Wilson was, like 
Rawlins, desperately in earnest in the matter of the war, 
and he welcomed eagerly the opportunity of usefulness 
held fortli in an alliance with Rawlins, even though 
when he stood in the presence of his new general, just 
returned from Memphis to the front, he could see noth- 
ing whatev-er in Grant's appearance to warrant the 
faintest anxiety. 

Accustomed to the pomp and dignity which sur- 
rounded the commanding generals with whom he had 
served. Lieutenant Wilson was presented to a simple- 
mannered, soft-spoken, rather stooping and unsoldierly- 
looking man, utterly unostentatious and utterly free 
from any appearance of the dissipation attributed to 
him. Grant, the graduate of '43 and one of the famous 
fighters of the old Fourth Infantry, welcomed the young 
graduate of i860 as though he were one of the family, 
chatted with him as to affairs at the front, as though he 
had quite as much reganl for the opinions of the lieu- 
tenant not yet twenty-five, as he had for the seniors 
about him, and made the newcomer, in consequence, 
quite at home. To see the " Chief " mingling, as it were, 
on terms of comradeship with those about him was 
something that made on Wilson a deep impression. To 
see that there were a certain few of the staff, notably 
those earliest appointed, who took advantage of this and 
assumed airs of greater intimacy and closer relation- 
ship was something obvious to others at the time and 
probably to Wilson, though in his vivid Memoirs he 
does not say so. But, however unfavorably he may 
have been impressed with these objectionable few, how- 
ever strongly he was impressed by and drawn to his 
new commander and future chosen chief, it was evident 
that the young West Pointer at least had from the out- 
set begun to appreciate the man who more than any 
other was Grant's right arm throughout the war — John 
A. Rawlins, of Galena. " He was then," said Wilson, 

218 



GRANT AND RAWLINS 

" about thirty-two years old, five feet seven inches 
tall, broad-shouldered, stout limbed and of strong, vigor- 
ous health. With jet-black hair and brown, steady eyes, 
swarthy complexion, fine teeth, a finn mouth and a 
clear resonant voice, he impressed me as a very earnest, 
able man." Earnest, able and efficient he proved himself 
from first to last, and the stanchest, steadiest of the re- 
markable military family which gradually became a 
council of ten of the surest and strongest men in their 
respective lines it was possible for a general-in-chief to 
draw about him. Graduates of the great National 
Academy occupied the headship of each department, ex- 
cept the medical, but chief of them all by common con- 
sent, and second only to the commanding general in their 
faith, favor and respect, stood Rawlins, the man who 
did not hesitate when occasion required, but for very 
diflferent reasons, to whisper to his chief as did the 
chosen slave to the hero of old — " Remember thou art 
mortal." 



CHAPTER XXII 
GRANT AND McCLERNAND 

" The winter of our discontent " was that which fol- 
lowed the summer of Second Bull Run and Antietam 
in the East, and of Perryville, Corinth and luka in the 
West, Along in November McClellan had managed to 
march his loyal friends and followers of the Army of 
the Potomac to the neighborhood of Warrenton, Vir- 
ginia, where at last the over-patient President had been 
compelled to relieve him of the command. Along in 
November Grant had his columns in northern Mis- 
sissippi, striving to force a way southward. But here the 
country was sparsely settled ; the enemy retired before 
him, and then, when every wheel of his train and 
batteries was hub deep, and the men's brogans were 
clogged with sticky mud, the Southern cavalry circled his 
flanks and fell upon the supply stations at the rear. The 
most important post of tloUy Springs had been left to 
the care of a colonel who had already shown the white 
feather, and should earlier have been shot or sent home. 
A second time, and without even a show of fight, he 
miserably surrendered. 

While the roads, or rather the lack of roads, in cen- 
tral Mississippi had more to do with the turning back 
of Grant's columns than the loss of supply depots at 
the rear, it seems strange that Grant should have trusted 
such responsible duty to such an irresponsible inan. 
Soft-hearted we know he was, and sympathetic to a 
remarkable degree, yet he was firm and strong enough 
to " break " a brilliant division commander — a class- 
mate and comrade of old — and send him home, because 
he was perpetually in a wrangle with the generals 
about him. Again Grant, who could not bear the sound 



GRANT AND McCLERNAND 

of suffering among the wounded after Shiloh, could 
hold out firmly against the pleadings of a mother for a 
worthless son, could rebuke his own kith and kin when, 
in one of the rather numerous essays to "work" him 
(we seem to have no authorized English which exactly 
expresses the meaning conveyed by the vernacular), 
they sought to induce him to take upon his staff a young 
officer most justly sentenced by court-martial to sus- 
pension from rank and pay. But there had been some- 
thing about that unfortunate colonel's case which in- 
duced Grant to give him another chance and the com- 
mand at Holly Springs. That, however, was the end 
of him. 

Now, all this time when there was anything worth 
reporting Grant reported it to the general-in-chief at 
Washington, but up to January little had occurred to 
call for correspondence except as to mere matters of 
routine, and nothing that could call for congratulation. 
Public attention for the time had been attracted else- 
where — to McClellan's halting tactics along the Potomac 
— to Buell's foot race with Bragg from the Tennessee 
back to the Ohio — to the indecisive fight of Perryville. 
The public noted with mixed emotions that the Presi- 
dent had had to remove both McClellan and Buell. The 
public noted that when Buell stepped down and out 
the next in rank in the Army of the Ohio, and the 
only one who had won a battle, did not step up to his 
place. Instead of George H. Thomas then and there 
becoming head of what had sO' long been referred to as 
" Buell's Army," the command went to William S. 
Rosecrans, of Ohio, and the public at first did not know 
that Thomas, loyal to his chief and to his flag in spite 
of Stanton's suspicions, had actually registered a pro- 
test against the treatment accorded Buell, and thereby 
had increased the disfavor of Stanton, and brought 
about the promotion of Rosecrans instead of himself. 

These matters settled as winter came on, attention 

221 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

once more began to centre on Grant and his campaign, 
when condensed on a sudden by the momentous mid- 
winter battle of Murfreesboro, between Rosecrans and 
Bragg, beginning in the overthrow of McCook and 
Crittenden at the right and centre, and bringing up 
eventually against that strong and steadfast bulwark 
of the national defense in this and every fight in whicli 
he figured, George H. Thomas, the loyal Virginian. 
People in and about Washington, the White House and 
the War Department, were so busy over the details of 
that narrow escape from another disaster that Grant 
and his affairs for the time being — the month of Janu- 
ar}' — were left to look after themselves. 

And at this very juncture it seems that Grant had 
taken the bit in his teeth and, dropping the fruitless 
inland campaign in central Mississippi, had set forth 
upon another, down stream, just in time to checkmate 
an insidious move to deprive him of the opportunity 
which proved the turning point — just in time to harness 
the tide which, taken at its Hood, was destined to lead 
on to fame and fortune. 

All these months of the fall and early winter rumor 
had been busy with McClemand and his plans and pro- 
jects. Bold, aggressive, ambitious, a nian of no mean 
ability in any line of life, and a capable and proved 
division leader in battle, McClemand was possessed 
with intense desire to rise to the supreme command in 
the West and to down Grant ; and while Grant, having 
little to tell, was telling the War Department practically 
nothing about himself or his plans, McClemand, sup- 
plying information of his own devising, was apparently 
having the ear of Secretary Stanton and even of the 
President. McClemand had innumerable means of con- 
ducting his campaign against his chief. He had been a 
fellow townsman of Lincoln, and claimed fellowship 
on that account, but in reality there was far less to this 
than was believed by him and his friends, or by thfe 



GRANT AND McCLERNAND 

loyal friends of Grant. Lincoln and McClernand had 
dwelt together in Springfield, but hardly in touch. In 
politics they had differed widely. In social affairs they 
had mingled little if at all. McClernand was a vehement 
Douglas Democrat in the National House of Represen- 
tatives; Lincoln was an ardent exponent of the new Re- 
publican faith at home. From having been a backer of 
Southern rights and slavery, McClernand, with Logan, 
Hurlbut and other prominent Illinois Democrats, had 
followed the noble lead of Stephen A. Douglas, whose 
thrilling speech to the Illinois legislature in April, 1861, 
had turned wavering spirits to warlike and determined 
stand for the Union. 

Few men realized, as did Lincoln, the desperate need 
of the nation in this hour of threatened dissolution. 
It was, as he saw it, his duty and the proper policy 
to encourage and develop this Union sentiment among 
those whose political sympathies had led them hitherto 
with the South. It was this in great measure which 
prompted him to reward the magnanimous support of 
Douglas with the tender of a major-generalship. It 
was this that led to the appointment at the outset of 
McClernand, Hurlbut and Prentiss as brigadiers from 
the State of Illinois, when older and larger States were 
accorded but one or two or none. Far better soldiers 
in the regular service meanwhile went utterly unnoticed. 

Now, true to his habit of seeking advice and infor- 
mation, true to his policy of encouraging and conciliat- 
ing, it seems that in this autumn of '62 when so little 
was being done to his comfort or satisfaction, the Presi- 
dent was giving ear to McClernand, who was urging 
the formation of a strong column with which to sweep 
down the Mississippi, capture Vicksburg and Natchez, 
and open the Father of Waters to the flag and the fleets 
of the Union. The next heard of McClernand at 
Grant's headquarters in the field, he, who had left the 
front in the early autumn, was conferring with Gover- 

223 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

nor Yates at Springfield, and busying himself in the re- 
cruiting of new regiments, the organization of a sepa- 
rate force to be known as the Army of the Mississippi 
and to be the independent command of Major-General 
John A. McCiemand. 

Now, Vicksburg was the strategic centre of the 
Southwest, the true objective point of the campaign, 
and the very core of the great military department of 
which Grant was the legal head. Yet here was one 
of his juniors — it is misleading to refer to McClernand 
as his " subordinate " — planning to conduct an inde- 
pendent expedition under the very nose of the com- 
manding general. (Jrant, unsuspicious as ever, had not 
seen the danger : Wilson and Rawlins, far younger but 
far shrewder men, had scented it from the start. Wil- 
son, indeed, had heard of the project before ever he left 
Washington to join the army in the Southwest. Wilson, 
after the mud march of the early winter, ventured to 
open his heart to his approachable and friendly chief, 
and tell him frankly what he feared — that Grant was 
being undermined at the War Department, and that his 
proper course was to drop the land route forthwith, and 
head an expedition of his own at once by river. This, 
it seems, was exactly what Grant had already deter- 
mined to do — not because of McClernand, but because it 
was now the obvious move. It was his entire right and 
the orders were therefore issued without consultation 
with higher authority. Having nearly completed his 
preparations Grant, it is true, notified Hallcck, as 
general-in-chicf, of his intention to accompany certain 
of his troops on an expedition toward Vicksburg, and 
Halleck, for once, never interposed an objection. He 
probably saw at a glance that this would render it im- 
possible for McClernand to succeed in his scheme of 
heading a separate expedition, and Halleck had come 
to know McClernand well, to respect his abilities as a 

224 



GRANT AND McCLERNAND 

statesman and his courage as a soldier, but to distrust 
him utterly as a general. 

Then, too, just when it may have seemed to Mc- 
Clemand and his intimates that the hour of their 
triumph had come, the President took a hand in the 
game and issued, all unsolicited by Grant, the order 
which, without the faintest reflection on McClernand or 
reference to his aims and ambitions, was none the less 
a cogent reminder to that chafing and restless junior 
that he was still under the orders and control of Grant. 
It was a bitter blow to McClernand, and it intensified 
the antagonism he so long had felt toward the man 
whom he presumed to regard, not as his legitimate 
superior, but as his rival. 

Dividing the military forces of the Southwestern 
Department into four army corps, the President made 
McClernand head of the Thirteenth, Sherman of the 
Fifteenth, Hurlbut of the Sixteenth, and McPherson of 
the Seventeenth — all to constitute the Army of the 
Tennessee, under command of Major-General U. S. 
Grant. Here, therefore, were four fine Corps d'cDrmee 
of seasoned soldiers, commanded by four experienced 
leaders, two of them Ohio " regulars," unselfishly loyal 
and devoted to Grant, and two of them Illinois volun- 
teers, as selfishly disafifected toward their chief, though 
otherwise loyal to their country. 

But how can a soldier be loyal to his colors, his oath 
of office and his country, without being loyal to his 
immediate superior? At the very moment when Grant 
was setting forth upon his first exploring expedition 
down the river, a general court-martial was sitting at 
Washington for the trial of a major-general whose de- 
votion to one chief had led him into disparagement and 
suspected disloyalty toward another. 

And now it is best to follow to its conclusion this 
matter of McClernand's disaffection and then refer to 
it no more. 

IS 225 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Believing that he had been promised the independent 
command of what was to be known as " the Army of the 
Mississippi," and the conduct of operations at the heart 
of the Confederacy, declaring that he had been de- 
frauded of these by Grant, McClernand set forth on the 
Vicksburg campaign an embittered and disappointed 
man, full of wrath toward his immediate commander in 
the field, and still believing that he had iniiuence enough 
with the President and the War Secretary to rid him- 
self of that obnoxious obstacle to his hopes and am- 
bitions. The stories of Grant's inebriety became com- 
mon talk in Washington in the spring and summer of 
'63, and were whispered far and wide throughout the 
army. The President and Stanton and Halleck seem 
to have heard them time and again, and yet when Mr. 
Charles A. Dana, Assistant Secretary of War, was sent 
as confidential adviser of the administration to ac- 
company Grant's headquarters in the field — (a most 
unusual adjunct to the entourage of a commanding gen- 
eral, and one to which many a general would have 
strenuously objected) — only once could Mr. Dana de- 
tect a symptom of the lapses declared to be habitual, and 
it was not long before Mr. Dana became decidedly 
drawn to Grant, and, as the result of his own observa- 
tion, averse to McClernand. His letters to Stanton 
clearly show it. 

Now, while Grant was ever courteous and con- 
siderate in all his dealings with McQernand — calling 
him into conference quite as much as he did his other 
corps commanders, and inviting his presence whenever 
he invited theirs— it was noted that McClernand pre- 
served at all times a stiff, formal, and distant manner 
toward his chief. It became noticeable that McClernand 
early in the campaign displayed irritation and annoy- 
ance whenever he received an order from Grant, that 
he was slow and indiflFerent as to obeying. Little by 
little the breach seemed to widen, notwithstanding the 

226 



GRANT AND McCLERNAND 

efforts of Rawlins and Wilson, both of whom held 
McClernand in esteem and admiration for his many 
strong, virile and valuable traits, and in spite of Raw- 
lins's every effort so to word every letter, order or 
endorsement as to give McClernand no excuse what- 
ever for misunderstanding, misunderstandings would 
occur — McClernand seemed determined to take offense. 
It is a marvel that the final " break " did not sooner 
come, but it is certain that Grant strove to humor his 
surly second in command, unwilling to humiliate so 
true a patriot and so brave a soldier. McClernand, on 
the other hand, seemed as firmly bent on forcing a rup- 
ture. The beginning of the end was hastened when 
Grant was urging the utmost speed in ferrying the 
army across to Bruinsburg for the forward rush on 
Jackson, and, according to Mr. Dana, McClernand made 
preparations to bring his bride, her maid and all her 
paraphernalia over into Mississippi with the army. 
Then when not a moment should have been lost Mc- 
Clernand wished to hold up the entire movement that 
he might tender a review of his corps to Governor 
Yates, who had come down to visit the army. Con- 
trary to instructions, also, McClernand ordered a salute 
fired in honor of the Governor, and one brigade, at least, 
lined up for review. It was absurd, as McClernand 
probably had sense enough to know, but Grant's refusal 
and prompt orders to move at once seem to have in- 
censed him the more. In his anger McClernand dared 
to disobey positive instructions to leave his wagons at 
the landing when the column took the route for Port 
Gibson. Grant and his staff, including Mr. Dana, left 
behind them everything but the clothes they had on, 
and made the march to the front on borrowed horses 
sooner than miss the first fight — a battle brilliantly won 
mainly by McClernand's men, they having the advance. 
And here again McClernand wilfully and defiantly 
flouted the orders of his commander present on the 

227 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

field. Grant, knowing the importance of harboring am- 
munition, late in the action directed the batteries to 
slacken fire: McQernand, hearing this, loudly and 
instantly ordered them to continue, declaring that he 
had fought this battle himself, meant to fight it through 
and would not be interfered with by anybody. 

Yet a little longer he tarried with them, utterly 
spoiling Grant's combinations at Champion's Hill by 
slow, dilatory, half-hearted methods, when bold and 
impetuous advance was ordered and expected. For this 
in part Grant could not blame him, for the orders sent 
McClernand on the previous day were to " proceed with 
extreme caution and not provoke a battle," so that when 
the heavy fighting began about Champion's Hill early 
in the morning, McClernand, still several miles to the 
southeast, took until midday to begin the advance. In- 
deed it was not until then tliat he received Grant's 
urgent orders for haste. Hasten, however, he did not. 
McClernand could fight boldly and well for himself, 
but not at the beck of Grant. Presently came the siege 
which might have been averted had Pcmberton been 
" rounded up," as probably he could have been at 
Champion's Hill, and here J^IcClernand's unruly spirit 
burst all bounds. A perfectly legitimate and reasonable 
order was borne to him by the man of all others who, 
with Rawlins, had shown himself to be a friend and well- 
wisher. Very possibly Lieut. -Colonel Wilson had been 
selected because of the close friendship between the Mc- 
Clernand and Wilson families, the comradeship of the 
elder Wilson and McClernand in the Black Hawk war, 
and because, with Rawlins, Wilson had striven hard 
after Tort Gibson to bring about a better understanding 
between the two senior generals. By that time, how- 
ever, Grant had been aflfronted too much and too often. 

At all events, it was Colonel Wilson, the Illinois 
West Pointer, who was sent to McClernand with a very 
simple order, nothing more than to strengthen the out- 

228 



GRANT AND McCLERNAND 

posts of the Thirteenth Corps at Hall's Ferry, on the 
Big Black — an order which should have been received 
with soldierly appreciation and obeyed with cheerful 
and soldierly alacrity. To the utter amaze of the younger 
officer, the elder instantly and furiously replied: "I'll 
be G— d d— d if I'll do it ! I am tired of being dictated 
to ! I won't stand it any longer, and you can go back 
and tell General Grant," winding up, says Wilson in 
his Memoirs, " with a volley of oaths which seemed as 
though they might have been aimed at me as at our com- 
mon chief." 

This was too much for a soldier and a gentleman to 
hear. First being careful to repeat the order as given, 
and so to acquit himself of his official duty, the West 
Pointer proceeded to tell his fellow citizen and soldier 
from Illinois that even a major-general couldn't curse 
him with impunity, and that another word of the kind 
would lead to his pulling the general off his horse and 
" beating the boots off him " in front of his men. 

It sobered McClernand instantly. He promptly 
begged Wilson's pardon, assured him of his friendship, 
begged him to come to his tent and have a drink with him 
— he who couldn't say enough about Grant's ever doing 
likewise — and strove to explain the incident by the 
singular euphemism, " I was simply expressing my in- 
tense vehemence on the subject matter, sir." 

But Wilson, thoroughly incensed at such exhibition 
of disloyalty and insubordination, refused the proffered 
amende — he always refused to drink — and rode back to 
headquarters and very properly reported the entire 
affair to Grant, and Grant, far from being filled with 
wrath, was apparently filled only with merriment. Those 
words of McClernand had furnished him with just the 
phraseology he needed in frequent and mild reproofs to 
those about him, notably that fidus Achates, Rawlins, 
who swore like a trooper when even mildly warmed up. 
Time and again thereafter when Grant had occasion 

229 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

to note or reprove some outburst of rank blasphemy 
within his hearing, he would turn to his nearest as- 
sociate, as Wilson tells us, and say, with a smile, " He's 
not cursing. He's simply expressing his intense vehe- 
mence on the subject matter." And so even this flag- 
rant bit of defiance on part of McClernand was passed 
over. But the next settled it. 

McClernand had submitted a long detailed report 
to headquarters of the Army of the Tennessee, setting 
forth the deeds, the services, the sufferings of the Thir- 
teenth Corps from the start of the campaign to the 
repulse of the grand attack on the 22nd. One has only 
to read it as it stands to-day (Ofhcial Records, Civil 
War, Series i, Ch. xxiv. Part i) to see that it exalted 
the Thirteenth and slighted every other corps. It was 
meant, of course, for the eyes of the administration at 
Washington, and it was duly forwarded by Grant, but 
with the comment that it was " pretentious and egotis- 
tical." Then there suddenly appeared in the columns of 
the Northern press, widely circulated over the entire 
country, a copy of what purported to be a general order 
issued by the authority of Major-Gcneral John A. 
McClernand, eulogizing the heroism, skill and services 
of the officers and men under his leadership throughout 
the campaign culminating at Vicksburg, and correspond- 
ingly belittling the deeds of the men of Sherman and 
McPherson. Copies of the papers speedily reached the 
camps in Mississippi, and great was the wrath in the 
tents of the 15th and 17th — the rival corps. Sherman 
and McPherson promptly, Shennan in a most indignant 
letter, laid the matter before Grant. If any such order 
had been issued by one of the corps commanders, regula- 
tions demanded that a copy be sent to Grant's head- 
quarters, and none whatever had reached him. There 
could be little doubt, however, of its being genuine. 
Every word smacked of McClernand, but the matter 
was " respectfully referred to Major-General McCler- 

230 



GRANT AND McCLERNAND 

nand for explanation," and that misguided officer as 
promptly replied to the effect that the order was not 
only correctly printed, but he was prepared to stand 
by it and its allegations. 

Then came the dramatic sequel. McClernand had 
of course automatically severed his connection with 
the Army of the Tennessee, and could have no hope of 
future use or usefulness therein. It is probable that he 
had determined that the time was ripe for final rupture 
with Grant. He believed himself Grant's superior in 
ever}'thing but the date of commission. He probably 
believed that he could convince the President and the 
War Secretary that he and not Grant should be the com- 
mander at Vicksburg — that he, rather than Grant, was 
entitled to the credit of the campaign, and that he, not 
Grant, would be the man to complete the capture of 
Vicksburg and reap the great rewards of the crown- 
ing exploit. But he reckoned without his host. Grant's 
hold on the situation, on the President, the Secretary, 
and on the people of the North was such that nothing 
could unseat him. McClernand's official accusation that 
Grant was indebted to " the forbearance of his officers " 
for his retention in the service fell on deaf ears. The 
appeal of the ultra-pious and prohibition committees for 
Grant's relief from command because of alleged in- 
dulgence in liquor drew from the long-suffering and 
ever tolerant Lincoln only a whimsical expression of 
the wish that he knew where Grant got his whiskey — he 
would " be so glad to prescribe some of it for some of 
his other generals." Little by little the star of Grant 
emerged from the clouds lowering for a time about it, 
and now seemed burning brilliant and serene. And so 
it resulted that gallant but wrong-headed McClernand, 
utterly baffled and disappointed, dropped into the back- 
ground and finally, after repeated effort to have his case 
reopened, tendered his resignation at the close of 1864. 

It was a dramatic scene that night in the camp of 
231 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

McClemand, when, between one and two in the morn- 
ing, he was aroused by his orderly with the infonnation 
that the Inspector-General of the Army of the Tennessee 
had come with important orders. McClemand well 
knew what that meant ; arose, and with dignity and de- 
liberation clothed himself in complete uniform, placed 
his sword upon the table in the centre of his official tent, 
saw to it that the candles were lighted, took his seat in 
solemn state, then gave directions that the Inspector- 
General be admitted. 

To him entered Lieutenant-Colonel Wilson, accu- 
rately uniformed as himself, belted, sashed and spurred, 
and standing at attention before him, and with 
soldierly salute, delivered himself of his message: 

" General, I have an important order for you which 
I ain directed to deliver into your hands and to see that 
you read it in my presence, that you understand it, and 
that you signify your immediate obedience of it," and 
with that the staft officer handed the seated general the 
sealed envelope containing the order which was to un- 
seat him, watched him adjust his glasses, open and read. 
Then McClemand looked up and exclaimed, " Well, sir, 
I am relieved! " A brief pause: " By God, sir, we are 
both relieved ! " 

But if the deposed soldier meant that Grant, too, 
would be relieved as the result of the clash between them, 
he misjudged both the administration and the people. 
With the following day, with only his personal staff 
about him, the sore-hearted general was speeding north- 
ward, honored for his courage, his vim and energy on 
many a field, moumed by many a member of the Thir- 
teenth Corps, even though certain of its generals dis- 
avowed his statements, and bearing to his self-imposed 
retirement not a little of deep regard even among those 
who deplored his intractable spirit, and his deliberate 
defiance of a commander who would gladly have been 
his friend. 



CHAPTER XXIII 
GRANT AND A GREAT CAMPAIGN 

The campaign of Vicksburg began in a series of 
tentatives at the bluffs east of the Yazoo " bottom," but 
in that network of bayous and tangled morass, the 
natural obstacles were more numerous than those de- 
vised by human agency. Only on the west bank could 
the army find suitable foothold, and there below them, 
perched on its commanding heights, the heavy batteries 
of the South guarded the approaches to Vicksburg and 
swept the wide waters of the Mississippi. The one plan 
of all others, after canals, cut oflfs, direct assault, and 
the Yazoo route had all been discussed, was to float 
the gunboats and supply steamers under cover of night 
down past the thronging city, march the troops through 
the forest and along the twisting estuaries of the op- 
posite shore, reunite troops and flotilla miles below the 
batteries, ferry across to the Mississippi shore and 
strike inward at once. Bold, hazardous, " impossible," 
insisted Sherman, when it was broached in his presence. 
Impracticable, said others. " The boats will be blown 
out of water," declared the timid. But Grant, Rawlins 
and Wilson (Wilson who, starting as lieutenant of 
Engineers on the staff, had risen in less than six months 
to be Grant's Inspector-General and trusted adviser) 
stood together against all opposition, pointed out that 
Farragut's fleet had successfully steamed up stream 
against heavier guns and more of them, and that the 
navy's wooden walls at Port Royal had triumphed over 
the earthworks, thanks to better gunnery. It was 
argued that Farragut and Dupont had fine guns and gun- 
ners, and could shoot back, but that here the flotilla — a 
score of flimsy craft of all shapes and sizes, with only 

233 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

six battle boats by way of convoy — could only float by 
and be shot at. The question was put to Porter, Far- 
ragut's plucky second-in-command at the taking of New 
Orleans, and now at the head of the gunboats acting 
in aid of Grant and his eager army. Porter's answer 
settled it. Suppose he did lose a boat or two? Most 
of them could probably run the batteries without great 
damage, and that meant success. 

And so by devious routes, bridging the bayous and 
patching the levees as they went, the long columns 
marched away through the Louisiana lowlands opposite 
Vicksburg, emerged from the dense woods a dozen miles 
below, parked their wagons, pitched their tents, and then 
waited, wondering what was to come next, for only a 
senior or two was entmsted with the secret. 

A wonderful night was that of April i6th, soft and 
moonlit. Too bright for the purpose, hazarded some, 
who feared and doubted to the last, but Porter 
marshalled his ironclads, six in number, and with a few 
experimental steamers close following, waved adieu to 
the commanding general above the great bend, and 
silently bore away on that tremendous mission. Grant, 
his staff, his wife and children, seated on the upper 
deck of the headquarters steamer, slowly followed in 
their wake until, almost within range of the northern- 
most batteries, the boat was held, and with anxiety in- 
tense, they watched and waited. 

Then all on a sudden pandemonium broke loose 
along the heights above Vicksburg as it became evident 
that the Yankee gimboats were actually steering straight 
into their teeth. All at once the huge gims began to bel- 
low, and the shells to burst with fearful crashings above 
and about those devoted and deserted decks. Every 
man except the helmsman and certain necessary 
watchers had been ordered below on the ironclads, each 
of which as it could bring its gims to bear, took up the 
thunderous chorus. Wooden buildings along the water 

234 




THE OLD GRIMSLEY AND BRIDLE 

Grant's favorites while with the Army of the Tennessee 

rom the originals now in the library of the Chicago Historical Society. 
Courtesy of Miss Caroline M. Mcllvaine, Librarian 



GRANT AND A GREAT CAMPAIGN 

front, suddenly bursting into flame, lighted up the sur- 
face of the swollen river, and all too plainly revealed 
every vessel of the daring fleet. Full three miles or 
more they had to run the gauntlet of those fire-belching 
batteries, and, marvellous as it may seem, all but one 
steamer managed to float securely by. Long ere morn- 
ing came, army and navy were exchanging greeting and 
congratulation at New Carthage, away below Vicks- 
burg — the citadel of the Mississippi was turned. 

And when the last boat vanished in the dim and 
mystic light beyond the bend and below the lurid glare 
about the batteries, Grant, the most impassive of the 
watchers, could bear the suspense no longer, and in spite 
of the not unnatural and quite outspoken opposition of 
his wife, long accustomed to domestic dominion over 
him, ordered horses, called to Wilson, the best rider of 
his staff, to accompany him, and set forth at the peep 
of day on a seventy-five mile trot over those devious 
roads and bridges, to reach the appointed rendezvous 
far down stream and get the details fresh from the lips 
of Porter himself. *' My husband is a very obstinate 
man," sighed Julia Dent, but it was a trait that hitherto, 
in her experience at least, had not been unconquerable. 
A new and different and almost unrecognizable Ulysses 
was this who had so eagerly welcomed her and the be- 
loved children, when they came to join him at Memphis, 
and if the usually tractable husband and father of the 
Hardscrabble and Galena days could be so different 
while still far from the actual concern of imminent 
battle, how much the more should he be " different " 
here at the far front, and in the face of tremendous 
responsibilities? It was probably not until the outset 
of the Vicksburg campaign that the former belle of the 
old barracks, the future mistress of the White House, 
began to realize that there were occasions on which her 
long devoted liege could and would act independently of 
her views and wishes. But this is mere " digression 

235 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

from our purpose," which was to tell of Grant in one 
of his greatest campaigns, leaving to later pages the 
discussion of his attitude as husband and as father, 
wherein the true Grant shone as tenderly and truly as, 
ever tenaciously and truly, he held to the line in head- 
long fight. 

Seventy-five miles rode Grant between dawn and 
dusk of that April day, to congratulate Porter and con- 
fer with McClemand long into the night. Seventy-five 
miles he rode back again the following day, he and 
Wilson well nigh using up their mounts and orderlies, 
but seemingly returning fit and ready for even harder 
riding. Speedily Grant sent southward all the other 
boats of his flotilla, laden with the needed food, forage, 
ammunition, medical supplies, and the inevitable im- 
pedimenta without which an anny cannot move. Speed- 
ily he decided on the landing place on the Mississippi 
shore just below the mouth of Bayou Pierre. Straight 
from the hamlet of Bruinsburg Grant launched his 
columns to the interior, first battling and beating the 
enemy at Port Gibson ; then, to the amaze and consterna- 
tion of the Southem leaders, and to the outspoken re- 
monstrance of Sherman, cutting loose from his base 
and all communication with superior authority, led 
straightway northeastward for Jackson, the capital, 
there to overwhelm and put to flight the Southern forces 
under Joseph E. Johnston, hastening to the aid of those 
of Pemberton. Then, having smashed the army in his 
front, back more leisurely he turned to challenge the 
army in his rear, driving Pemberton before him; well 
nigh trapping him at Qiampion's Hill, bridging the Big 
Black and storming his lines on the westward bluffs, and 
finally, in just twenty days from the hour of his setting 
foot on Mississippi shore, penning Pemberton and his 
thirty thousand within the walls of Vicksburg. 

Twenty days of a campaign in which, as military 
experts have said, the generalship was absolutely per- 

236 



GRANT AND A GREAT CAMPAIGN 

feet — a thing that so rarely can be declared of any gen- 
eral that it becomes remarkable in case of one so often 
denounced and derided as Grant. Twenty days of swift 
marching and sharp fighting in which, night and day, 
Grant was alive with energy and electric force, in saddle 
from dawn till dark, sending orders and despatches 
hither and yon, receiving reports from front, flank and 
rear until after midnight, snatching short hours of sleep, 
rolled in his blanket in a fence corner, and seldom un- 
dressing, even when bed and roof were provided by 
certain wide-awake members of the stafif. Twenty days 
in which he gave his generals and his officers but little 
rest, his enemy still less, himself least of all, keeping 
ever}^body on the move until he had split the Southern 
force in twain, flung one- half back across the Pearl, 
and chased the other within the lines of Vicksburg. 
Twenty days of a campaign which it is safe to say Hal- 
leck would never have sanctioned had he been given a 
chance to interpose, and which Sherman stood out 
against to the very last, and then owned up like a man 
and said, with Shermanic emphasis and embellishment, 
that Grant was right and he was wrong. Twenty days 
in which Grant's strategy and tactics stand unchallenged, 
and which might and should have wound up the entire 
campaign but for the few precious hours lost on the 
Union left the day of Champion's Hill. That mis- 
understanding with McCleniand cost us the support of 
his strong Western division just at a time when 
IMcPherson, reaching far around the northern flank, 
had flung an arm about the retreating foe, and Hovey's 
men had even barred and blocked the road to Vicks- 
burg and to temporary safety. 

Forty-five days longer, once he reached the cover of 
that long chain of skilfully-planned intrenchments, 
Pemberton was able to withstand, first the fierce assaults 
and later the slow, methodical siege approaches, with 
every day bringing him nearer and nearer the verge of 

237 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

starvation, and no nearer relief or hope. Everywhere 
just then the forces of the Confederacy were vehe- 
mently occupied, and no column could be spared and sent 
to hew at Grant's flanks or rear, and make him loose his 
inflexible hold. Away to the east Lee was marching into 
Maryland and on to the great and dramatic three days' 
pitched battle with Meade on Pennsylvania soil. In the 
middle west Bragg and Rosecrans were crouching like 
Japanese wrestlers manoeuvring for an advantage and 
poising for a spring. In eastern Mississippi Johnston 
was striving to rally in sufficient strength to once again 
try conclusions with Grant, but already the South had 
found itself without reserves. And so it happened that 
while Pemberton could not get a man to help him, Grant, 
whose thin lines had wrapped the long concave of outer 
heights, from the Yazoo above to the Mississippi below, 
who with less than forty thousand had penned his foe- 
man, now^ by mid June had twice that number at his 
command, and absolute confidence in the final result. 

It came just as the nation, with a gasp of relief and 
thanksgiving, learned that Lee, after tremendous bat- 
tling, had recoiled before the arms of Meade, and was 
falling back from Gettysburg. While the issue in Penn- 
sylvania was yet in doubt, while Lee's sullen lines still 
confronted Meade across the drenched and sodden fields 
at Gettysburg, in no uncertain tones came the announce- 
ment from the West : Pemberton had surrendered at 
discretion ; Grant again had triumphed over his foes ; 
Vicksburg had fallen, and the Father of Waters rolled 
" unvexed to the sea." 



CHAPTER XXIV 
GRANT IN THE HOUR OF TRIUMPH 

During that " winter of our discontent " in which 
the Army of the Potomac was fearfully misled and as 
fearfully hammered at Fredericksburg, and the Army 
of the Ohio was fearfully hammered and well nigh over- 
thrown at Murfreesboro, and the Army of the Ten- 
nessee was mired in the mud of northern Mississippi 
and compelled to put back for supplies, the people of 
the North became insistent. The administration could 
not explain how or why it was that with bigger armies, 
better equipment, and the best of intentions our gen- 
erals were apparently getting the worst of every en- 
counter. Something had to be done to bring about 
better results, and after long pondering Mr. Secretary 
Stanton hit on the happy expedient of sending a letter 
to certain commanders of separate armies in the field 
in which he promised the victor of the first decisive 
battle a major-generalship in the regular army. Mr. 
Stanton had little faith in human nature. He doubted 
the existence of the governing principles of a soldier. 
He could not believe that pure, unadulterated patriotism 
existed among our generals. Without the promise of 
unusual fee or reward, reasoned the lawyer, no man 
could be expected to exert himself; hence his offer to 
the professional soldiers at the head of his forces at 
the front. 

As an illustration of temperament the effect was in- 
teresting. Rosecrans raged in spirit, and wrote a ve- 
hement and indignant reply to the effect that he desired 
no bribe in the performance of a soldier's duty. Grant 
read his, stowed it in his pocket, smoked and said noth- 
ing. Hooker, at the head of "the finest army on the 

239 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

planet," was speedily eliminated at Chancellorsville by 
a much smaller force under Lee, and by the adroit use 
of Stonewall Jackson's pet device, one which every gen- 
eral in the Potomac Army should have confidently ex- 
pected, and which both the division and corps com- 
mander on the exposed flank refused to believe, even 
when reliably and repeatedly warned of its coming. 
Hooker was driven back to his camps, and Chancellors- 
ville added to the array of our humiliations. 

Even Grant's spirited campaign in central Missis- 
sippi, and the bottling up of Pcmberton, hardly served 
to restore Union hopes. Then came Lee's northward 
spring, the clinch at Gettysburg, the final repulse after 
a tremendous conflict, the unmolested return to Vir- 
ginia. The North thanked God for the relief that fol- 
lowed that three days' battle, so close was the issue, so 
narrow the escape from fell disaster. In spite of the 
urging of the President, the War Secretary, the Gen- 
eral-in-Chief, Meade, the victor on the spot, had felt the 
pulse of his almost breathless army and doubted its 
power to stand another round. Lee should never have 
been permitted to recross the Potomac, thought Mr. 
Lincoln, and surely it seems so to students who read 
the conditions and figures. But the flower of the South 
was in those stubborn ranks of Lee, Longstreet, and 
Ewell. Fighting on the defensive Meade had lost one- 
fourth of his array in the three days' battle. How very 
much more might he lose if he hurled his wearied men 
on those sullenly inviting, retiring lines? Better leave 
well enough alone, was the counsel of some of Meade's 
ablest advisers. It was all well enough to clamor from 
a safe distance for instant pursuit and attack. It was 
what the administration prayed for, and probably most 
of the Northern people, but, as Longstreet distinctly told 
the writer in New Orleans in 1872, no more fervently 
than did the men of Lee, especially when intrenched at 
Williamsport. 

340 



GRANT IN THE HOUR OF TRimiPH 

And so, in spite of partial triumph and relief, Get- 
tysburg was not the half that Lincoln, Stanton and 
Halleck hoped for, whereas, up from the far southwest, 
came the details of another great surrender to that in- 
comprehensible Grant; and now, at last, even Halleck 
threw up the sponge with which he had smudged the 
earlier successes of Henry and Donelson, the stubborn 
stand at Shiloh, the skill and strategy which turned 
Vicksburg and led on to Jackson. With Pemberton 
fairly penned and Johnston held at bay, with Vicks- 
burg captured and the Mississippi freed, Halleck owned 
that Grant after all stood pre-eminent in his line, and the 
prize of the major-generalship in the regular army went 
forthwith to the man who nine years before stood sadly 
in the streets of San Francisco, discredited, destitute, 
well nigh friendless and alone. 

Halleck himself, as we know, was in San Francisco 
at that time. Hooker, recently trounced on the Rap- 
pahannock and later tricked by Lee, was also then 
prominent in California circles, and presumably con- 
versant with the circumstances connected with Grant's 
resignation. And as for the men who had compassed 
and compelled that resignation from the regiment Grant 
had grown to love — though not as he loved wife and 
children at home — where were they? No man who 
ever knew Buchanan could accuse him of malignity. 
He had looked upon his junior with a soldier's eye 
that liked not the stern task he had in hand. He had 
done simply that which he conceived to be a duty in 
ridding the service of a man who would neither come 
up to his standard as to soldiership, nor control at all 
times a desire to drink. Bonneville, the aging colonel, 
now in '63 was serving as commander of the barracks 
at St. Louis, and never rose to higher grade. Buchanan, 
" Old Buck," as his admiring juniors dared to call him, 
still the picture of the soldier and the gentleman, had 
commanded the regular brigade through the battles in 
16 241 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Virginia, had been appointed brigadier-general of volun- 
teers in November, '62, but the Senate said " No," and the 
appointment lapsed with the 4th of March. Like Bonne- 
ville, Buchanan then accepted duty at the rear, until in 
'64 he became colonel of infantry and joined his regi- 
ment in New Orleans. 

It may be confidently declared that with Buchanan's 
humiliation at the hands of the Senate Grant had noth- 
ing whatever to do. That friends of his, still rankling 
over the past, may have sought revenge by defeating 
the richly-deserved promotion of Buchanan, is some- 
thing of which Grant probably knew nothing. It was 
not in him to injure a deserving man. It zvas in him 
to work and work hard later for the restoration to com- 
mand of men like McClellan, who had injured him — of 
Buell, who had slighted and belittled him. 

More than one ofhcer had said or written of Grant 
before Mcksburg that which later he totally forgot until 
most unpleasantly reminded. The Damon and Pythias 
attitude in which Grant and Sherman ever appeared, 
had stirred envious souls to recollection of something 
written by Sherman in '62 — something to the effect 
that " had Charley Smith been spared to us Grant would 
never have been heard of,'' something which in the 
light of later events Sherman thought he never could 
have written, and said so. Whereupon, as the word of 
an officer who had been drawn into the controversy 
stood disputed, it seemed necessary to publish a photo- 
graph of Sherman's own letter. After all it only said 
that which Grant himself had said and felt as to Charles 
F. Smith. Both Grant and Sherman honored and looked 
up to their old commandant as the finest soldier of their 
day. Grant ever felt embarrassment in sending Smith 
orders of any kind, and, as he says, would have served 
Smith as loyally as Smith ever served him. If any man 
thought to break or even strain the bonds that united 
Grant and Sherman by the publication of that character- 

242 



GRANT IN THE HOUR OF TRIUMPH 

istic statement, great must have been his disappoint- 
ment Grant was too magnanimous and Sherman too 
genuine. If anything it only served to weld the friend- 
ship. 

The conquest of Vicksburg and the surrender of 
Pemberton's army had made Grant the greatest of our 
generals in the eyes of the nation, and put an end for 
many moons to the clamor at his expense. McClernand, 
to be sure, fought hard in public and in private for his 
own restoration, and for an " investigation " as to Grant, 
but the President had to deny them both. In spite of 
the fact that McClernand had still a strong following 
at home — a host of honest people who had known him 
long years, believed in him and honored him — there 
were too many million people by that time who could 
see nothing but Grant. The McClernand cry against 
him, therefore, was but a mote in the broad sunshine 
of popular acclaim. For long weeks the modest victor 
could bask, if he chose, in public adulation, but he did 
not so choose. Telegrams, letters and tributes rained 
upon him, all expressive of praise and congratulation. 
Grant read, put them in his pigeon holes — there was no 
longer room in his over-stuffed pockets, the usual re- 
ceptacle — smoked and simply said " thank you " or noth- 
ing. He could not begin to answer the letters, neither 
could his staff. Pie had, too, the delighted missives from 
the wife and children whom, all save adventurous Fred, 
he had earlier sent up stream again. Fred had managed, 
to the father's humorous delight, to pick up a mount 
at Bruinsburg — he and Mr. Dana sharing a venerable 
pair of carriage horses the night of the landing — and 
to accompany the staff throughout the campaign. " He 
looked out for himself," wrote the General, later, for 
the father had no time to give to him, and as other 
chroniclers have said, he was very much in evidence for 
a fourteen-year-old, and sometimes as much in the 
way. All the same the soldiers, as they expressed it, 

243 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GR.\NT 

"took a shine" to the lad, whose face was ever as 
cheery and smUing as by that time the father's was grim 
and set. 

For a few weeks after the great surrender Grant and 
his staff were occupying quarters in the city. The Gen- 
eral, with Rawlins and Wilson, moved in as not un- 
welcome guests at the commodious home of a planter 
whose wafe had been suspected of Union sentiments 
throughout the siege. For some reason the Confederate 
commander, General Pemberton, whom we saw at San 
Cosme coming with Worth's compliments to Grant, had 
seen fit to assume toward his conqueror a cold and re- 
pellent manner which excited in Grant rather more 
amusement than it did annoyance. Pemberton, on July 
3rd, had requested the appointment of a commission 
to arrange terms of capitulation, adding the customary 
platitude about a desire to avoid unnecessary effusion of 
blood. Grant sent his simple yet uncompromising re- 
sponse to the efTect that commissions were unnecessary, 
and unconditional surrender all that was required. So 
a second time these " unchivalric," yet entirely proper 
terms were dealt out to the vanquished. Grant and 
Pemberton met between the lines and under the tree 
which later speedily was whittled to death. Grant was 
entirely at his ease, in no wise exultant or superior. 
Very possibly the utterly matter-of-fact manner which 
seemed to say, " this is all just as I planned and ex- 
pected," may have been a cause of irritation to Pem- 
berton, for when Grant and his staff on a very hot day 
rode in and dismounted at Pemberton's headquarters, 
the Southern general and his officers maintained their 
haughty and distant attitudes, offered not even a chair 
or a glass of water to the tired and thirsty visitors, and 
so were allowed to depart with empty wallets. Two or 
three young West Pointers in Confederate gray, how- 
ever, came forward to shake hands with Wilson and 

244 



GRANT IN THE HOUR OF TRIUMPH 

were presented to Grant, who welcomed them sincerely 
and kindly. When they left to rejoin their dejected 
comrades their worn haversacks were bulging with all 
the good things the headquarters' mess afforded. 

And just as soon as the veterans of Vicksburg's 
defense, having surrendered amis, flags and equipments, 
had marched away (unfortunately permitted to go and 
fight as much more as it pleased them — the one serious 
error of Grant's management of the surrender) Julia 
Dent reappeared at the far front, and took up her abode 
with her conquering husband in a house full of at- 
tractive women, in the midst of a new-budding 
romance. The most beautiful and attractive of the oc- 
cupants was the governess of the planters' daughters, 
a New England girl of excellent family, who became 
at once the object of unstinted admiration and of some 
undesired attentions. The former were genuine and 
lasting, the latter were presently routed and replaced 
by devotions as sincere as was the man. Rawlins, the 
hard-headed, pragmatical chief of staff, who had buried 
his wife at the outbreak of the war, had fallen promptly, 
deeply and devotedly in love, and to the sympathetic 
interest of General and Mrs. Grant, began his deter- 
mined wooing. It is recorded of this uncompromising 
and incomparable aide that he who had been the most 
absorbed and austere of men, became in this presence 
the gentlest and least aggressive. Long years of his 
vehement life Rawlins, when aroused, had been ac- 
customed to vent his views in hair-raising expletives. 
The lady was from the land of steady habits where 
long years of the pillory had done much to banish " pro- 
fane swearing," and Rawlins, whose language hitherto 
had known no trammel, even in the presence of him who 
swore not at all, his soft-spoken chief, registered his 
vow to break himself of the habit of a lifetime, and a 
mighty struggle did he have with himself; and hereon 

245 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S, GRANT 

is where that selfsame chief was stronger than his 
mentor. Habits as deeply rooted as Rawlins's blasphemy 
Grant could and did conquer and put aside without so 
much as a sign of a struggle. 

But the love afifair thus born in Vicksburg went on 
to blissful consummation. A joyous wedding was that 
to which the staff was bidden in December following, 
and a noble union was that which ensued and lasted 
until that " most untimely taking off " which later robbed 
Grant of his own war secretary and his loyal, devoted 
and indispensable friend. 



CHAPTER XXV 
WHAT FOLLOWED VICKSBURG 

First came weeks of reports, of letters and con- 
gratulations, of calls, callers, gifts and givers. Many- 
letters had to be answered and there was not time in 
which to do it. Many calls had to be returned, and it 
would have been better had some of them — notably that 
of Banks from New Orleans — been left until the war 
was over. Many of the gifts might far better have 
been returned, but were not. He who never had an 
" ulterior motive " could not see it in another, and then, 
while he had little use for many things that were sent 
him except such as cigars and saddlery, they were a 
delight to Julia Dent, who, like Alice in Wonderland, 
had an almost childish pleasure in an " unbirthday gift." 
There were gifts that set Rawlins's nerves on edge in 
his effort not to swear. There were even some which 
he urged the General to decline outright ; whereat Grant 
looked gravely, keenly, at the flushed and bearded face, 
pufifed thoughtfully a moment, turned and went silently 
away. Wilson sometimes was called in by Ravv'lins to 
second the urgings of the chief-of-stafif, but while in 
m.atters military, and even in some matters personal 
to himself, the General heeded what those men had to 
say, some influence more powerful than theirs actuated 
Grant to the last in that matter of accepting gifts. 
Bribes they never were, because bribed he could not 
be ; but as bribes, no doubt, a number were sent, and the 
effect upon the public mind In later years a thousand 
times outweighed their value. 

But the weeks that followed Pemberton's surrender 
were very happy ones to Grant, and full of bliss and 
triumph to his wife. The contrast between her state 

247 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

as consort of the conqueror of the West, the chief of 
the great army and department of the Mississippi, 
courted and flattered on every side, and the humihty 
of their lot when he was grubbing at " Hardscrabble " 
or clerking at Galena, was enough to tuni many a head, 
though it never seemed to disturb his. Military critics 
claim to see a perceptible falling off in the conduct of 
affairs for a month or two after Vicksburg. Certain 
it is that much that might have been done was not done, 
but for most of this Ilalleck, not Grant, was responsible. 
It was in no wise the fault of Grant, for instance, that 
Lee was able to take Longstreet and his famous corps 
from under the aquiline nose of Meade, and send him 
around by rail to northwestern Georgia, there to join 
Bragg and enable him to fall upon Rosecrans and ham- 
mer him at Chickamauga, that terrific battle which well- 
nigh neutralized the summer victories, and which re- 
stored the credit and confidence of the South. With 
Stanton's elaborate system of spies and secret service it 
is remarkable indeed that one-third of Lee's army could 
march away from the Rapidan unguesscd by any one 
at Washington. Yet even this might not have harmed 
"Old Rosy" had he been reinforced from the West 
as Bragg was from the East. The Army of the Missis- 
sippi broke up after Vicksburg. The Thirteenth Corps 
were floated down to aid Banks in Louisiana, Sherman 
had been sent to whip Johnston out of Mississippi and 
came back without having done it — saying his men were 
tired and Johnston too nimble. McPherson, with the 
Seventeenth Corps, was holding the line of the Mis- 
sissippi as far down as Natchez. A strong division had 
been detached to aid Steele in Arkansas, and another 
to Bumside in far east Tennessee, and Sherman's 
splendid corps might well have been sent up to Memphis 
and then shipped to Chattanooga by rail, and with this 
aid from their old rivals of the Tennessee the chances 
are that the men of the Cumberland could have beaten 

248 



WHAT FOLLOWED VICKSBURG 

Bragg, even had he been reinforced more heavily than 
he was, both by Longstreet and by quite a number of 
Pemberton's late defenders of Vicksburg. 

This, however, was not urged upon Washington by 
Grant, nor was he much impressed by the arguments in 
favor of it, advanced principally by his youngest, yet 
one of his ablest counsellors, Wilson. Ever since Don- 
elson there had been some intangible, indefinable un- 
easiness between those two annies, the Tennessee and 
the Ohio. Even after their welding at Shiloh, their 
merging before Corinth, that feeling existed. The men 
of Donelson resented it that their leader should be 
" sidetracked " by any man from the Army of the Ohio 
— even the grave, dignified and honored soldier whom 
the men of Mill Springs and their comrades already 
hailed as " Old Pap " Thomas. It had stung the Ten- 
nessee to note how much Halleck exalted Thomas at 
the expense of Grant, and it was probably the founda- 
tion of the deplorable coldness which little by little de- 
veloped between Grant and Thomas — but of that here- 
after. 

At the time when this move to aid Rosecrans was 
proposed to Grant, Sherman had been for some days 
back from his dusty marchings to and fro ; his men 
were rested, and most of them eager to be at the throat 
or heels of the enemy. But Rosecrans, ignorant of the 
preparations being made to receive him south of the 
Tennessee, was in the full flood of a skilful campaign 
of manoeuvres. The papers were predicting all manner 
of success and triumph, and it may be that Grant be- 
lieved that, as the Army of the Tennessee had absorbed 
most of the glory thus far, and the old Army of the 
Ohio, now known as the Army of the Cumberland, was 
really launched on an independent campaign with 
promise of a crowning victory, it would only spoil it 
all to interject the aid of their rivals. It is more than 
possible that at this stage of the game Rosecrans would 

249 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. CtRANT 

have been embarrassed by the coming of Sherman, and 
might have been exasperated. 

Be this as it may, Grant did not urge the move. On 
the contrary, much to the disgust of Rawhns, he de- 
cided that this was a favorable time to visit the lower 
sections of his military domain, and to return the call 
of Banks. With this in view he took steamer for 
New Orleans, accompanied by his personal staff, leav- 
ing Rawlins to finish the reports of the campaign, to 
" run " the routine of the great command during his 
absence, and for the time being Grant disappeared from 
the view of his faithful friends at headquarters. Just 
as Rawlins dreaded, no good whatever and not a little 
harm resulted. 

Galloping to a review at Carrollton, above New 
Orleans, Grant's borrowed horse slipped, fell and 
crushed his rider's leg beneath him. Grant went on 
crutches for nearly ninety days and no end of calumny 
was again started. Given a reputation for having once 
indulged in drink and anything will revive it. It would 
seem that in many a mind there is nothing so impossible, 
if not unforgivable, to man as ability to drop the vice at 
will. 

Fortunately at this juncture Rawlins himself had car- 
ried to Washington the priceless records of the Vicks- 
burg campaign, had been received and heard with 
marked respect and consideration by the President, by 
Halleck, and even by tempestuous Stanton. (It would 
have been a case of Greek meet Greek had the latter 
taken occasion to " turn loose " on Rawlins, as he so 
often did on others.) But all that Rawlins had to tell of 
the campaign and of the personal energy and activity of 
his chief came in good time. A story was current in the 
fall of '63, and revived with circumstantial detail a year 
later, to the effect that seeing his General yielding on 
a certain occasion in June, '63. to the alleged weakness 
of his Galena days, Rawlins had written a strenuous 

250 



WHAT FOLLOWED VICKSBURG 

letter, telling- Grant in so many words that he could not 
bear to see the splendid powers of his chief clogged or 
clouded by liquor, that he had noticed that very night — 
it was written at one a.m. — that even in the presence 
of "the eyes of the Government," Mr. Dana, Grant's 
staff officers were drinking and inviting their chief to 
join. Moreover there were indications which prompted 
him, Rawlins, to believe that Grant had yielded. Pos- 
sibly it was this story which McClernand sought to stir ; 
at all events it was told that Rawlins had said in so 
many words that the next time these symptoms appeared 
he would tender his instant resignation and go home. 
It is recorded that in his wrath on the occasion referred 
to, Rawlins impounded every bottle he could find about 
headquarters, even a basket of champagne kept to cele- 
brate the surrender of Vicksburg when it came, and 
smashed them before the eyes of their owners. It was 
a noble letter, but it was hardly a noble motive which 
prompted its publication in full in the memoirs of an 
unsuccessful general of the eastern anny. 

Unlike Sherman's missive as to what might ever 
have been heard of Grant and himself had Charles F. 
Smith been spared to us, this was not a photographic 
copy, nor was the original produced, but all the same it 
bore tremendous weight and was probably authentic ; 
it certainly had all the " earmarks " of Rawlins's style. 
Nevertheless Wilson and others who were with Grant 
throughout the campaign aver that there was precious 
little on which to base the belief that Grant had been 
drinking either before or after the occurrence in 
question. 

But the luckless fall of that horse at Carrollton gave 
rise to all manner of gossip, eagerly believed and cir- 
culated wherever Grant's would-be rivals held sway. 
There were other disturbing tales abroad, of which 
Rawlins heard not a little and Grant had apparently 
heard not at all, nor heeded if he heard. He long since 

251 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

had learned the futihty of combating newspaper 
slander, and had come to accepting all such as the in- 
evitable accompaniment of success. 

One tale that hurt him to the extent of writing to 
Mr. Washbume, was that of capturing and returning 
to their masters the fugitive slaves who had sought his 
lines for protection after Donelson. Now came others 
which sought to implicate him in cotton speculation. 
Of course there had been abundant opportunity, for he 
controlled the situation, and to officers eager to ac- 
cumulate wealth the temptation was greater even than 
the opportunity. 

Here in all the country about Vicksburg lay thou- 
sands of bales of the now almost priceless staple, and 
presently by every boat came eager would-be investors, 
some with and some without authority of the War De- 
partment. To insure his command against the inevitable 
demoralization which would result from such a traffic, 
Grant had issued positive orders against it. He could 
have reaped a fortune of one hundred thousand dollars 
in thirty days had he seen fit to lend himself, or the 
power of his name, to such a scheme, but he would have 
none of it. 

Now, it is not to be imagined for a moment that the 
eyes of so keen a money-maker as Jesse Grant had been 
blind to this opportunity, or that, had he retained the old 
dominion over his son which in '39 had prompted the 
latter to " think so too if he did," the elder would have 
been among the foremost seekers after cotton ; but Jesse, 
the father, had lost that domination, and he knew it. 
He would not spend a cent to get his son the horse and 
uniform he needed as colonel of the Twenty-first 
Illinois, yet within six months was importuning " Gen- 
eral " Grant, commanding at Cairo, to help him get a 
contract for making harness for the artillery and trans- 
port. He had helped the son not one cent's worth to 
his high position, but was speedily writing him to give 

252 



WHAT FOLLOWED VICKSBURG 

stafif appointments to one Foley, then to " Al Griffith " 
and later to a Mr. Nixon. Failing in these he wrote 
begging that a pass to go South, obviously for purposes 
of speculation, be given to a Mr. Leathers, and in all 
these and in kindred appeals the son for good and 
sufficient reasons had stood out against him. Finally, as 
has been pointed out, the General had found himself 
compelled to write bidding his father, in no uncertain 
terms, to cease meddling in military affairs. " You are 
so imprudent that I dare not trust you with them " 
(particulars of recent events). " I have not an enemy 
in the world who has done me so much injury as you 
have in your efforts in my defense. . . . For the 
future keep quiet on this subject." 

It was useless to try to " work " Ulysses, but there 
were other ways of attaining the object, and hardly 
had the smoke of the last battle about Vicksburg cleared 
away when there came a kinsman of the commanding 
general, and with a permit from the Secretary of the 
Treasury. The canny Grants had reckoned that Mr. 
Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio, would be loath to deny the 
request of a near relative of Ohio's greatest soldier, 
now the central figure of the war. Grant, the general, 
when confronted with this officially authorized arrival, 
smoked and said nothing. If the administration saw fit 
to do thus and so, it was not for him to protest. But 
Eawlins reasoned otherwise, and, never waiting to con- 
sult his chief, wrote a peremptory order banishing the 
cotton buyer from the lines, and when Grant checked it 
as being harsh and unnecessary, where a word would be 
sufficient, the chief-of-staff burst into a fury of wrath 
and blasphemy. The scene and sequel are best de- 
scribed in the words of General Wilson himself — 
probably the only eye and ear witness. 

" This was more than the rugged and determined chief- 
of-stafif could stand, and, evidently fearing that it meant a 
relaxation of discipline, if not a defeat of justice, he burst 

253 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

forth perhaps unconsciously with a volley of oaths, followed 
by the declaration that if he were the commanding general 
of the department, and any kinsman of his dared to come 
within the limits and violate one of its important standing 
orders, he would arrest him, march him out and hang him to 
the highest tree within five miles of camp. 

" Thereupon, without waiting to note the effect of his sten- 
torian speech, he turned about and, re-entering his own office, 
violently slammed the door behind him. 

" It was an embarrassing episode — the only one of the kind 
I had ever witnessed — and as the punctuation of his remarks 
was both profane and disrespectful, I followed him and said : 

" ' Rawlins, that won't do. You have used language in the 
General's presence that was both insubordinate and inexcusable, 
and you should not only withdraw it, but apologize for it.' 

" Without a moment's hesitation he replied : ' You are 
right. I am already ashamed of myself for losing my temper. 
Come with me.' And walking back into the General's presence, 
he said, in his deep, sonorous voice: 'General, I have just 
used rough and violent language in your presence which 1 
should not have used, and I not only want to withdraw it, 
but to humbly beg your pardon for it." 

" Then with a pause and a blush he added : ' Tlie fact is, 
General, when I made the acquaintance of the ladies at our 
headquarters I resolved to give up the use of profane language, 
and blankety blank my soul if I didn't think I had done it.' 

" .A^t this naive expression Grant's face lightened with a 
smile and he replied : ' That's all right, Rawlins, I understand. 
You were not cursing, but, like Wilson's friend, " simply ex- 
pressing your intense vehemence on the subject matter." ' 

" It is needless to add that the incident passed off to the 
satisfaction of all concerned. The order was suspended, but 
di.scipline was vindicated by a quiet intimation on the part of 
the General that the intruder's health would be improved by 
an early return to the North, and he went the next day." 

And so for a brief spell the family efforts to "fatten 
at the public crib," as the papers put it. through their 
connection with their one famous member, received 
temporary check. But the time was to come when, in 
added numbers and potent influence, they returned to 
the charg-e. But that was after Grant quit the tented 
field for the White House. 

Hardly had the General commanding returned to 
254 



WHAT FOLLOWED VICKSBURG 

Vicksburg- and begun to hobble about on his crutches 
when the nation was stunned by the news of Chicka- 
mauga. Dana was with Rosecrans at the time, and his 
vivid pen-picture of the crushing effect ui)on Rosecrans, 
of the possible result to Burnside, now in peril at Knox- 
ville, of the overthrow of McCook and Crittenden, 
whose ill fortune had become proverbial, and finally of 
the indomitable stand of Thomas, led to most important 
measures on the part of the administration. As the only 
successful commanding general of the four armies in 
the West, Grant was given supreme control, and sum- 
moned to oust Bragg from his triumphant perch on 
the heights overlooking Chattanooga, where, grim, de- 
fiant, destitute of forage and short of rations, the Army 
of the Cumberland held to its fortified lines. 

And so, in mid October, journeying, as required by 
his orders, via Cairo and Indianapolis, Grant, with his 
staff, arrived at the capital of the Hoosier State, and 
found explanation of the roundabout route in the per- 
son of Mr. Secretary Stanton, who had come all that 
way to meet and take personal measure of the man of 
the Mississippi. Stanton boarded the car, promptly 
grasped Dr. Kittoe, staff surgeon, by the hand, confident 
as ever in the infallibility of his judgment, and im- 
pulsively exclaimed : " How do you do, General Grant ? 
I recognize you from your pictures." 

And so met the two men who henceforth to the end 
of the war were to be the dominant factors — Stanton 
at the War Department, Grant at the front. 



CHAPTER XXVI 
GRANT AND THOMAS 

To Louisville together journeyed Stanton and Grant, 
sitting apart from the staff, and conferring gravely upon 
the situation. At Louisville they parted, Stanton to 
return to his duties at the Department of War, Grant to 
hasten southward, each rather relieved to get away from 
the other. Acting together loyally until after Appo- 
mattox, Stanton backing Grant, and Grant subordinately 
conferring with Stanton, there was never between them 
any pretense of personal friendship. In the perform- 
ance of what he conceived to be his public duty, Stanton 
had given his assent in the past to measures which had 
humiliated and reflected upon Grant — especially after 
Shiloh — and Grant had never forgotten it, but had de- 
liberately shaken himself free f)f all possible hitidrance 
from the Ilalleck-Stimton influence when he " cut 
loose " at Bruinsburg and launched out for Jackson. 
Each had now learned to respect the ability and the 
patriotic purpose of the other, and, for the sake of the 
common cause so dear to both, their official acts were 
thereafter to be in concert. But this did not prevent 
Stanton from keeping his eyes and ears open, his spies 
and sycophants alert, for anything amiss al>out Grant, 
his associates and his habits; nor did it make amends 
in Grant's eyes for words and deeds to his detriment 
in the past; in fact it made him watchful, if not ex- 
pectant, of new and similar demonstrations in the 
future. 

But in going Stanton left to Grant full authority 
to manage his now immense command practically in 
his own way. This included the relief of Rosecrans 
from duty at the head of the Army of the Cumberland, 

256 



GRANT AND THOMAS 

the assignment thereto of George H. Thomas and the 
promotion of Sherman to the command vacated by 
Grant. The wires that very day bore to Thomas the 
tidings of his new duties, with Grant's injunction to 
hold Chattanooga at all hazards, and in thrilling words 
came Thomas's spirited answer to Grant : " We will 
hold the town till we starve." 

And then, all breathing more freely after the de- 
parture of Mr. Stanton, Grant, with two or three of his 
chosen, scandalized Rawlins by going to the theatre. 
Rawlins would have had out a special train and set 
forth that very night to join Thomas at the imperilled 
Gateway of the Gods. 

Accompanied now only by his military family, Mrs. 
Grant and the children having been " detached " at 
Cairo and sent to safe refuge, while the husband and 
father returned to the front. Grant arrived two days 
later at Stevenson, beyond which the railway could not 
carry him. Eastward the Tennessee was lined along 
the south bank by sharpshooters in butternut or gray, 
and communication with Chattanooga was by steep and 
devious routes over the high ridges and plateaus. Never- 
theless, the indefatigable Mr. Dana had ridden to meet 
them and to give Grant full information as to conditions 
at Chattanooga — officers and men hungry but plucky, 
horses and mules, more than half of them already 
starved to death. There could be no doubt of the sin- 
cerity of Dana's welcome. He had learned in the Vicks- 
burg campaign the true value of Grant, had set him 
higher in esteem than any of his generals, had learned 
to know and believe in Rawlins as a " naturally bom " 
chief-of-stafif, and to regard Wilson and Bowers as the 
General's most trusted aides. He rejoiced in the War 
Department order, with the final issuance of which he 
had doubtless had much to do, assigning Grant to the 
command of the entire military division of the Mis- 
sissippi, embracing the departments of the Ohio, 
17 257 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Cumberland and Tennessee and the armies therein en- 
gaged. He rejoiced in the arrival on the Tennessee of 
Hooker, with the Eleventh and Twelfth Corps from the 
Army of the Potomac, and the tidings that, far away to 
the West, Sherman was already in march to join them. 
It promised under God's providence the final exclusion 
of the battle flags of the South from this section — 
the stronghold of the Middle West. Taking Wilson 
with him, the " eyes of the War Department " re- 
mounted at Stevenson and set out for Chattanooga, 
leaving Grant and his staff to make the slow and pain- 
ful progress necessitated by his still serious injuries. 

But first came interesting meetings with two former 
rivals — generals recently commanding armies as great as 
his own, if not greater and far more conspicuous — and 
the manner of the two men, as well as of the meetings, 
is illustrative of the mental attitude of each. It was 
here at Stevenson that the famous and successful leader 
of the victorious Anny of the Tennessee met the de- 
posed heads of the defeated armies of the Potomac and 
Cumberland — Hooker still smarting from the stigma 
of Chanccllorsville, Rosecrans still suffering from the 
stings of Chickamauga. 

It was characteristic of Hooker that he should as- 
sume a superior and patronizing attitude at the outset 
in the possible hope of attaining the old ascendency of 
captain over subaltern, or the glory of the headship of 
the " finest army on the planet " over the " hayseed " 
leader of those " hoodlums " of the Tennessee, which 
descriptives were attributed to and certainly sound like, 
el capitan hermoso, as " Fighting Joe " was known in 
Mexico. Having in mind the Grant of Vancouver, 
Humboldt and San Francisco days, and ignoring the 
fact that he too for a time before the war had been well 
nigh as poor and otherwise quite as open to criticism as 
Grant — ignoring, too, the immensity of Grant's later 
services and successes, and daring to ignore the fact 

258 



GRANT AND THOMAS 

that Grant was now his superior officer to whom it was 
his duty to show every military deference, it pleased 
Hooker at Stevenson, as it had Buell at Savannah, to 
omit the prompt and soldierly call for the purpose of 
" paying respects " and reporting conditions. The cus- 
tom in all armies is as old and as thoroughly recognized 
as that of the salute to superior rank. But Hooker sent 
a staff officer with the airy message that he " wasn't 
feeling very well and would like to have General Grant 
call on him." 

That message fell into the best possible hands when 
it was delivered to the chief-of-staff. Rawlins looked 
up from his improvised desk and never waited to hear 
what his mild-mannered chief might wish to say, for if 
Grant really believed that Hooker were ill he would take 
his crutches and set forth at once to see what he could 
do for him — which was the way of the Army of the 
Tennessee. Rawlins was too quick for his chief ; Raw- 
lins saw through the artifice in an instant, and his 
resonant voice informed the Potomac-schooled aide-de- 
camp, and a score of staff officers sitting about, that 
" General Grant himself is not very well and will not 
leave the car to-night. He expects General Hooker and 
all other generals who have business with him to call 
at once " — a message which opened the eyes of Hooker 
and his staff to the soldier stuff there was at Grant's 
headquarters, and taught a much-needed lesson. 

And then came Rosecrans and a contrast. Cor- 
diality toward the general who had come to supplant, 
and had already relieved, him was not to be expected. 
Rosecrans had looked upon Grant's earlier success as 
accident, upon his promotion as luck, and upon his 
conduct of affairs at Shiloh and later at Corinth and 
luka as far from sound. Rosecrans, so believing, had 
so declared himself in talk about the camp fires, and 
it had all in time reached the ears of Grant. But after 
Vicksburg Rosecrans saw that in the silent man of the 

259 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Tennessee there was generalship none of them could 
match, and, like Halleck, he surrendered, though long 
years thereafter that relief rankled and stung. Here, 
however, in candid and soldierly subordination Rose- 
crans reported to the man he had not seen since Corinth 
and had been moved to lightly regard. Frankly, courte- 
ously he was received, and the two held a long and im- 
portant conference. Rosecrans was full of information 
as to the country and the opposing forces, and loyally 
gave it to the new commander; then went his north- 
ward way with the respect and sympathy of those about 
Grant, and the undoubted affection of his old command. 
Each general for the time felt for the other an access of 
soldierly regard, though as it happened they never had 
been cordial friends, and later became still further 
estranged. 

But there was yet to come a meeting with the new 
commander of the Anny of the Cumberland — ^he who 
twice had saved it and who twice before, but for per- 
sistent loyalty to his immediate superior, might have 
been assigned the command. George H. Thomas stood 
waiting at Chattanooga to receive his new commanding 
general, and throughout the Army of the Cumberland 
there was no little talk and speculation as to what that 
reception might be. 

Ever since Donelson, as has been said, there had 
been this feeling between the Army of the Tennessee 
and that of the Cumberland. Ever since Shiloh there 
had been constraint between Grant and Thomas. Their 
common superior, Halleck, had humiliated the former 
in favor of the latter. They had not met or served to- 
gether since the Mexican war until Halleck's cautious 
forward crawl upon Corinth, and when Thomas here 
encountered Grant the latter was under a cloud mainly 
of Halleck's creation — a cloud which seemed to en- 
velop and hide him from the eyes of all save the ever 
faithful Sherman. Xo general of Buell's army, so far 

260 



GR-\NT AND THOMAS 

as is known, sought out Grant to say how much he 
regretted or disapproved the position of practical sur- 
veillance to which he had been relegated. It would have 
been an improper and unsoldierly act, and the Army 
of the Ohio, later of the Cumberland, was too well 
taught and disciplined. Moreover, what did they know 
of Grant and Grant's habits save what they had read 
and heard and could so readily believe? It is simple 
truth to say that that army thought it had many a gen- 
eral of its own who was Grant's superior in everything. 
Then early in the second winter of the war, just 
after their fierce experience *of Murfreesboro, the gen- 
erals of the Ohio heard of that recommendation of 
Grant to create one big command out of the western 
armies and departments, all under one head, and the 
inference was that Grant wished to be that head. Per- 
haps he did, but he had not so said or written, and 
this was something neither Rosecrans nor any of his 
division commanders desired. 

Then had come Grant's splendid campaign, closing 
with the surrender of Vicksburg, and his double stars 
in the regular army. Then had followed " Old Rosey's " 
brilliant campaign of manoeuvring, closing with the 
sudden and amazing disaster of Chickamauga and the 
downfall of three prominent chiefs well-loved in the 
Cumberland— Rosecrans, McCook and Crittenden. The 
Army of the Cumberland was every whit as brave, as 
loyal and devoted as that of the Tennessee. Moreover, 
it contained no discordant factors, as had the Ten- 
nessee, and yet with all its loyalty, its fine soldiership 
and discipline, its proved spirit and knightly chivalry, 
it stood humbled and defeated, while its rival stood ex- 
alted in the public eye. Luck, superior forces and bet- 
ter generalship had been dead against it, and the Army 
of the Cumberiand was sore in spirit, sore at heart. 

And just at this time, as more ill luck would have 
it, there spread a rumor through the ranks, and it was 

261 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

common talk about headquarters, that Grant had said, 
and Sherman had echoed, that the Army of the Cumber- 
land had been whipped and cowed — that now it could 
not be induced to come out of its works and fight. 
(Sherman's Memoirs later confirmed the statement.) 
Is it strange that now, as Grant drew nigh to become 
its superior, there was little welcome for him in the 
army at last led by George H. Thomas? Is it strange 
that these two great and loyal soldiers should feel the 
chill of that same enshrouding cloud the wet and wintry 
evening of Grant's arrival at Chattanooga? 

He came to Thomas's headquarters after dark of a 
long, toilsome, painful day of riding over mountain 
roads, reaching the Tennessee wet and bedraggled, only 
to meet with further mishap on the southern shore. The 
injured leg had caused him intense pain all day, and 
now, to make matters worse, " Old Jack," one of his 
most reliable mounts, slipped and fell heavily, and that 
luckless leg was again pinned and crushed. 

It was in this plight that he was assisted to limp 
heavily into the presence of Thomas, and presently 
the two were left together. Just what passed between 
them neither is known to have revealed. Wilson, hurry- 
ing in a few moments later, described the scene as 
follows: 

"I found Grant at one side of the fireplace, steaming from 
the heat over a small puddle which had run from his sodden 
clothing. Thomas was on the other side, neither saying a 
word, but both looking glutn and ill at ease." 

Then, learning from Rawlins that nothing had been 
oflfered for their comfort, and knowing that Grant 
" would not condescend to ask," Wilson tells of his own 
appeal to Thomas, who the moment he realized that 
Grant was weary, hungr)' and in pain, as well as drip- 
ping wet, gave instant orders for warm, dr)' clothing, 
and a hot supper. Willard, long confidential aide to 

262 



GRANT AND THOMAS 

Thomas, and in earlier days in Milwaukee the writer's 
teacher and friend, and Kellogg, the junior aide, long 
years later the writer's regimental comrade and cor- 
respondent, were among his authorities concerning these 
and other episodes at the time. 

Whatever of rancor had cropped out in this ill- 
omened meeting between these two great leaders was 
presently swept aside in the courtly Virginian's resump- 
tion of the duties as host. Fonnality, too, was speedily 
smothered. For the rest of that evening the generals 
and their staff officers mingled and chatted with all ap- 
parent ease and cordiality, but Grant lost no time next 
day in selecting a house of his own, and then it was 
noted that once more constraint and distance separated 
the two establishments. The staffs, taking their cue 
from their seniors, became formal and punctilious, and 
out along the lines and among the camp fires the talk was 
fast and furious among the soldiery as they scanned 
the jagged earthworks on the commanding ridges 
east and west, and discussed the newcomers under 
Hooker, from the Potomac, and the slow approach of 
Sherman with the Tennessee, and passed from fire to 
fire, with characteristic American candor, their impres- 
sions of the man on crutches back in town, and of these 
experts from east and west — from the army in Virginia 
and the army in Mississippi — who were come or were 
coming to show the Army of the Cumberland how to 
fight. Small wonder there was little compliment or cor- 
diality. When Pope in the summer of '62 was imported 
from the Army of the West to high command over the 
generals of the Army of the Potomac, he affronted the 
entire force at the very outset by the bombastic lecture 
with which he announced " Headquarters in the Saddle " 
and that he came from an army in which they had been 
accustomed to see only the backs of the enemy, which 
was no more tactful than it was true. When Grant in 

263 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

the autumn of '6;^ was imported from the West to su- 
preme command over the loved generals of the Army 
of the Cumberland, he stood credited with having said 
they could not fight and that he was fetching Sherman 
and the Tennessee to show them how. It was most in- 
auspicious, and it had wonderful influence in what fol- 
lowed. Eight weeks had Bragg and his veterans in 
gray occupied the long barriers of Missionary Ridge to 
the east of beleaguered Chattanooga, when Sherman 
finally came, and, crossing the Tennessee above the 
town, was sent in at the northward end of the ridge 
to take the Confederate army in flank and roll it south- 
ward, while Thomas, with the Cumberland in extended 
lines of battle in the westward valley, should face the 
parallel furrows bristling with Southern cannon merely 
to threaten, but not to be sent in to the attack. The 
Cumberland, so it was understood, was to take an ob- 
ject lesson in fancy fighting from the Tennessee — to 
" learn how," as it were — and Grant, with his staff, rode 
forward to Orchard Knob, midway across the plain and 
almost under the guns, where Thomas, grave and silent, 
greeted his superior with precise salute, and where the 
twain sat in saddle the livelong day, listening to the 
crash of Shennan's flank attack and watching the far- 
away clouds of sulphur smoke which, according to pro- 
gram, should have come floating steadily southward, but 
which somehow did not, for Sherman had been stopped 
at Tunnel Hill as flatly as in front of the Southern 
left at Vicksburg. And then at last, tired with its long 
wait, and even of satirical comment on the extent and 
value of its lesson in battle tactics, the Cumberland got 
its orders to " demonstrate," by way of driving off some 
of the tremendous force opposed, presumably, to the 
Tennessee. Then rejoice fully, in magnificent array and 
order, the four divisions — Sheridan and Wood in the 
centre — had marched to their stations, and there they 

264 



GRANT AND THOMAS 

received the order to advance, drive the enemy from 
the lower entrenchments and threaten — merely threaten 
— the ridge : that was to be the prize of Sherman and 
the Tennessee. The whole nation heard the rest in less 
than a week thereafter — how, like a human tidal wave, 
the long blue ranks struck the foremost line, sending 
the occupants scurrying for the shelter of the second, 
how like some huge breaker they had burst over the 
parapets and then rushed onward. They should have 
stopped short at the foot of the heights, those long, 
jagged ranks in blue. But they had been " stormed 
at with shot and shell," and now grape and canister were 
hurtling from the guns above. They had lost heavily, 
were losing more, had " got the rebels on the nm " and 
what was the sense in stopping? It seems as though 
Sheridan's men had said, " Come on, fellows," to 
Wood's, and that Baird's and Brannan's had taken the 
cue. Be that as it may, that long, light blue wave of the 
Cumberland swarmed and swept on up those jagged 
slopes to the very summit, and in ten minutes more the 
men were tumbling into and over the Confederate works 
— ^Bragg and his astonished generals barely escaping 
with their lives. 

It was an astounding victory, executed by no means 
as planned, but e.\evy bit as effectively as hoped. '' Who 
ordered those men up the heights ? " one historian de- 
clares that, in marked disapprobation. Grant said to 
Thomas. " No one," was the prompt reply ; " they're 
doing it of their own accord," and so it proved. It is 
also recorded by the same historian that Grant's instant 
response was, " It is all right if it succeeds ; if it doesn't, 
some one will suffer," to which Thomas said nothing. 
His men were talking for him. 

The overwhelming of Bragg's army at Missionary 
Ridge clinched for all time Grant's hold upon the people 
as their great and successful general. To them it was 

265 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

a matter of little concern whether the battle was won 
for him by the Cumberland or the Tennessee. It re- 
doubled the popular acclaim for Grant, but it failed 
somehow to bridge the chasm of constraint still grow- 
ing between him and the noblest of his subordinates. 
If anything, it seemed to lead on to even graver mis- 
understanding in the future, to impel Grant to the 
very brink of what would have been the greatest wrong 
he ever dealt in a life in which knowingly, intentionally, 
wilfully, he never wronged man or woman — the relief 
of Thomas on the eve of the greatest and most decisive 
victor)' of the war. 



CHAPTER XXVII 
GRANT AND SHERMAN 

That soldiers' battle of Missionary Ridge proved the 
turning point in the fortunes of several generals promi- 
nent on both sides. It practically closed the career of 
Bragg, whose reputation went to pieces with his army. 
Henceforth Joseph E. Johnston was to be the hope of 
the South in Georgia as Lee had been in Virginia since 
Johnston's disabling wound. 

On the Union side, two or three generals whose 
reputations went up like a rocket at Chickamauga came 
down like the traditional stick at Missionary Ridge, 
notably Gordon Granger, whom Dana had proclaimed 
the " Ney of the Army," the soldiers could not quite 
see why. Granger had certainly made a swift march 
of a few miles from his post on the extreme left, and 
pitched in handsomely with two small brigades to the 
aid of Thomas in that immortal stand. This was some- 
thing in line with Desaix's march au canon at Marengo, 
and led to his being given command later of the gallant 
Fourth Corps. But at Missionary Ridge he proved as 
great a disappointment as at Chickamauga he had proved 
a surprise. 

On the other hand, there was Sheridan, the stocky, 
black-eyed little commander of Thomas's centre divi- 
sion. Two months before, serving in McCook's Corps 
at Chickamauga, he had been caught in the human tor- 
rent that swept through the gap when Wood's division 
M^as withdrawn by mistake. Far up on the ridge he 
rallied his men, marched them through the nearest gap 
to the road behind it, and took them away from the 
field where some of their fellows were still fighting; 
then fortunately filed to the right through a northward 

267 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

gap, and late in the afternoon reappeared in rear of 
Thomas and ready to support him. McCook and Crit- 
tenden, who had also been whirled away, never again 
recovered their commands, but " Little Phil " kept his 
with him until that evening of November 25th, where, 
taking the bit in its teeth, the whole division ran away 
from its general officers, stomied the heights in its 
front, and Sheridan had only to put spurs to his horse 
and follow on. Two months earlier he led that divi- 
sion out of action, and it well-nigh wrecked him. This 
wonderful evening it led him into action and well-nigh 
made him. When, half an hour after the start, Grant 
himself appeared in saddle on the captured heights, 
Sheridan and his men were far down among the east- 
ward foothills, hurling Bragg's fugitives back to the 
very stream over which two months earlier they had 
swept triumphant. It was a great day for Sheridan, and 
from that time on Grant had him ever in mind. More- 
over, it gave to Sheridan a confidence in himself and 
his men which he lacked before — the confidence which 
Grant ever had and which made Grant indomitable. 

Sherman's repute was neither aided nor harmed by 
Missionary Ridge. He had made a brilliant crossing 
and had followed it with a fairly bold attack, driving 
the Confederate lines a short distance until they brought 
up on Tunnel Hill o»rf Pat Cleburne — as superb a 
fighter as the South could muster, and it mustered them 
by scores. Cleburne was still there " standing off " 
Sherman when those four divisions of the Cumberland 
swarmed up the slopes behind him and whirled away 
every vestige of support. Qeburne therefore had to 
let go in order to save what was left of his command. 
Then Sherman too could advance, but not until the 
following day. It was the Cumberland that went snap- 
ping at the heels of the retreating host, Thomas close 
following his victorious men, and never stopping to ask 
Grant if anybody in particular was now to suffer. 

268 



GRANT AND SHERMAN 

Thomas had much dignity and little sense of humor. 
He took the situation seriously, but there were men in 
that rejoiceful Army of the Cumberland who presently 
found no end of fun in it. 

The shades of night came slowly down when Grant 
reined up far over to the east of the heights whereon 
Bragg's headquarters had been perched for weeks, and 
still he had not overtaken his victorious amiy com- 
mander — " The Rock of Chickamauga." This may 
explain why no congratulations passed between them. 
Grant sent aides-de-camp to his leading generals to let 
them know that he was now returned to headquarters at 
Chattanooga, there to receive them or their reports. 
The aide sent to Thomas came back saying he couldn't 
find him, and as that aide had been longer with Grant 
than any other and seemed to accomplish less. Grant 
contented himself at the moment with telling Wilson to 
take up the duty the other could not perform, and 
Wilson says he groped for nearly two hours up the 
banks of Chickamauga creek before he ran into Baird's 
division, bivouacked and blissful, carried out his mis- 
sion and rode until near dawn, getting back to his chief, 
finding Grant awake and remorseful for having given 
him an all-night ride after a long day in saddle — some- 
thing Wilson did not mind in the least. Thomas had 
sent stafif officers with full report and still Grant could 
not sleep. A tireless man in saddle himself, and one 
who hailed in Wilson a fellow horseman, he neverthe- 
less hated to impose unnecessary fatigue, labor or ex- 
posure upon his stafif. One and all they bear testimony 
to this — Grant's courtesy and consideration for them, 
and for those who served with and under him. But, to 
the grim satisfaction of Rawlins, he had at last to rid 
himself of the aide who " couldn't find Thomas." 

Right here at Chattanooga Grant was to fill the va- 
cancy by the appointment of Horace Porter of the 
Ordnance Corps, Wilson's classmate, roommate and in- 

269 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

timate — as fine a soldier as his chum and even more 
valuable as an aide. Gifted with infinite humor and 
wit, Porter could be as reticent and close-mouthed as 
Grant himself. The acquaintance, begun the night of 
Grant's bedraggled coming to Chattanooga, ripened 
speedily into faith and trust, and then to fond and 
fervent regard which strengthened with every day of 
their association. It was high time Grant had strength- 
ened his personal following, for Rawlins, Wilson and 
Bowers, his most valuable and reliable officers, were 
sorely overworked. It was through Wilson that Grant 
selected the military secretary so long needed, for after 
Vicksburg his correspondence became voluminous. 
Then, as luck would have it, the man he pitched upon. 
" unsight, unseen," was shot through the foot at Port 
Hudson, had a long, slow, painful convalescence, and 
was unable to join until after Missionary Ridge. He 
was a most scholarly, highly-educated, little fellow, had 
gone with the expedition to Hilton Head in '6i, and 
made himself so popular that the officers recommended 
him for a commission, and it was given him. But they 
could not make him a soldier. Adam Badeau proved a 
success as a secretary, and in many a way was of so 
much use to Grant that the relationship lasted even 
through the sorrowful days of that second overthrow 
at the hands of Fate. Meantime Badeau had for nearly 
twenty years been a faithful friend, follower and a some- 
what fulsome biographer, lentil misfortune came he 
could see no star in all the constellations of the heavens 
to compare with that to which he had " hitched his 
wagon." With the final dissolution, however, the hitch- 
ing broke. 

The wintry months following the victory of Chat- 
tanooga were full of import. The people now would 
have it that Grant, the man of the West, was the one 
man of the war and should be recognized and rewarded 
accordingly. The President was much their way of 

270 



GRANT AND SHERMAN 

thinking, and in Mr. Elihu Washburne and in Governor 
Yates he had fervent backers. But in large numbers 
prominent poHtical leaders still doubted, still feared. 
Notably was this the case in the Senate. A bill to create 
the office of lieutenant-general had been prepared, and 
yet hung fire. Grant, never quitting his post at the 
front, set himself busily to the task of relieving Knox- 
ville to the northeast, and of warding off Johnston to 
the southeast. Then, with Christmas over and cam- 
paigning for the present at an end, he began planning 
future operations, and while he was about it, writing 
recommendations for promotion of certain of the staff 
officers and generals about him, and for the re-employ- 
ment of certain generals who, it is safe to say, were 
not agitating themselves and the powers-that-were in 
Grant's behalf. It seemed to him that McQellan, Buell 
and a few others, now shelved, were men of marked 
ability in certain lines, and that they and the cause might 
be the better off for their employment. Personal con- 
siderations did not enter into the matter. It is pos- 
sible that the re-employment of McClernand would have 
occurred to him, even though that fiery opponent had 
stirred every possible friend and strained every nerve 
to induce the President to reopen his case and to bring 
Grant before a board of investigation. But when, about 
the end of November, the North began to realize the 
magnitude of Grant's great victory at Chattanooga, 
McClernand finally realized the futility of his appeal, 
and thereafter little was heard of it. Another year and 
he decided to resign. It was one of the most sorrowful 
endings of what might have been one of the most suc- 
cessful careers had McClernand been content to serve 
and follow instead of being possessed with the craze 
to undermine, overthrow and lead. It was said that he 
denounced West Point and the West Point influence as 
the cause of his undoing, but it must have been only a 
limited few of the West Pointers to whom he objected, 

271 



THE TRUE ULYSESS S. GRANT 

for he was later seeking an appointment at large for his 
son, who, entering in '66 — oddly enough, side by side 
with the son of General Grant — was graduated in 1870, 
in which achievement he distanced the son of the Presi- 
dent, who, according to West Point's inexorable law, 
had had to fall back and try again. The younger Mc- 
Clernand proved himself to the full to have all his 
gallant father's bravery, energy and ability, coupled 
with a disciplined mind and a soldierly sense of duty 
which bore him on to his generalship in the regular ser- 
vice, honored by every man who ever served with or 
knew him. 

And in the plans and preparations for what was to 
come with the spring, the man ever closest to Grant's 
elbow was Rawlins, and the man ever brimming over 
with helpfulness and suggestion was Sherman. 
Wherever the duties of his command might take him, 
Sherman's heart was there with Grant, who had come 
to be in his mind the great aggressive general of the 
war — the man of all others destined to win the final 
victor}'. If ever there was a moment in which Shennan 
would have welcomed the downfall of Grant and the 
substitution of his own name for that of the deposed 
general-in-chief, his closest friend or Grant's most 
malignant enemy could never discover it. Shcmian's 
loyalty was something whole-hearted, spontaneous, ab- 
solute. He had differed with Grant on matters of 
strategy at times ; he had opposed the nuining of the 
\'icksburg batteries, and vehemently argued against the 
Jackson compaign, but, like the man he was, had frankly 
owned up, and said Grant was right. Now, by the 
winter of '63-64, Sherman had nothing but admiration 
for his chief, and his only dread for him was that of 
Washington and the influences which would there beset 
him. For politics and politicians, in spite of his family 
connections, and for everything controlled by political 
influences, Sherman ever had a wholesome horror. He 

272 



GRANT AND SHERMAN 

could not welcome the prospect of Grant's getting the 
lieutenant-generalship if it meant that he must take 
station at the War Department. He dreaded any move 
which might take Grant from the midst of the men who 
knew and believed in him — those men of the West with 
whom they two, Grant and Sherman, together had 
hewed their way to fame. He had a westerner's idea 
that the Army of the Potomac — which had been so 
superbly loyal and subordinate and self-sacrificing, no 
matter who was set over it — would not back this plain 
westerner as had " the Tennessee " through thick and 
thin. His antipathy to the War Department and its 
methods grew as the war went on and rose to fever 
heat against Stanton in '65, to the end that publicly 
he refused his hand at the great review, and would have 
none of him thereafter. Even when he became gen- 
eral-in-chief, with his own Grant at the White House, 
Sherman found the War Department intolerable and 
moved headquarters of the army to St. Louis. 

But ever, from \'icksburg onward, he remained to 
the very last the loyal and unswerving friend of Grant. 
He declared him the greatest " all round soldier and 
general " of the war. He spoke of him with generous 
enthusiasm time and again. Nothing is more character- 
istic of Sherman than the frank and at the same time 
" acute and just analysis " with which, in his own im- 
pulsive and inimitable way, he favored Wilson, who had 
come to command all the cavalry of the West. It was 
just before the memorable Alarch to the Sea. They 
had been in confidential chat long into the night and at 
last, in speaking of Grant, whom each had come to re- 
gard as the best and strongest of the Union leaders, no 
matter what had been his errors or his weakness, Sher- 
man suddenly burst forth : 

" Wilson, I am a d d sight smarter man than Grant ; 

I know a great deal more about war, military history, strategy 
and grand tactics than he does ; I know more about organiza- 
18 273 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

tion, supply and administration and about everything else than 
he does ; but I'll tell you where he beats me and where he 
beats the world. He don't care a damn for what the enemy 
does out of his sight, but it scares me like hell," adding further : 
" He issues his orders and does his level best to carry them 
out without much reference to what is going cm about him, 
and, so far, experience seems to have fully justified him." 

" And those who knew both," says Wilson — and this 
was penned long years after the war — " will have set- 
tled down to the conclusion that Grant was a far safer 
and saner general than Sherman." 

\\'ith his one weakness, his few faults, his many 
foes. Ulysses Grant was blessed by the devotion and 
loyalty of such stanch and fervent friends. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 
GRANT AND THE LIEUTENANT-GENERALSHIP 

Early in the spring of '64 the Congress yielded to 
popular demand and, recreating the office of lieutenant- 
general, enabled the President to confer it upon Grant, 
who was personally summoned to assume entire control 
of the armies in the field, and with a sigh of relief 
Abraham Lincoln affixed his signature to the commis- 
sion, and Halleck and Stanton with the best grace 
they could command awaited the triumphant coming of 
the Conqueror of the West. 

" U. S. Grant and Son, Galena, Ills." 

wrote a travel-worn, bearded, somewhat stoop- 
shouldered man of middle age, in the register at Wil- 
lard's Hotel, one gusty morning in early March, and 
the clerk in charge, who was figuring on a fifth floor 
room at the back of the house at first sight of the nev/ 
arrivals, glanced casually at the name, began with 

" Show Mr. Grant to " when somebody precipitated 

himself upon the unobtrusive stranger, seizing and ve- 
hemently shaking both his hands and exclaiming: 

" Why, General Grant, we didn't expect you till " 

whereupon the clerk gave a gasp and the by-standers a 
start. And then came an impromptu reception all too 
hearty and insistent for the modest and embarrassed 
recipient, who wanted a bath and breakfast. Some 
biographers say that Mrs. Grant and Colonel Rawlins 
accompanied him on his arrival at the capital. Others 
have it that they came later, by way of Philadelphia, 
where certain shopping had to be attended to. At all 
events it was but a short time before Mrs. Grant's ar- 
rival at Willard's. 

275 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Meanwhile, however, had occurred the memorable 
scene at the White House of the 9th of March, in which 
the President formally invested the first lieutenant- 
general since the days of Washington with the creden- 
tials of his new rank. In so doing the President made a 
brief and pithy speech, closing with the words, " With 
this high honor devolves upon you also a corresponding 
responsibility. As the country herein trusts you, so 
under God it will sustain you." 

Knowing well by this time that Grant was no speech 
maker, the ever considerate President had sent him in 
advance a copy of the remarks which he proposed to 
make, and, still further to put the recipient at his ease. 
Mr. Lincoln decided to read in order that Grant might 
do likewise. And so it is recorded that the quiet- 
mannered officer from the West, still wearing the coat 
of a major-general, and for once at least buttoned to 
the chin, listened gravely to the words of praise, en- 
couragement and confidence, then fished from a pocket 
a half sheet of paper and, in low but audible tones, read 
the following reply: 

" Mr. President, I accept the commission with gratitude 
for the high honor conferred. With the aid of the noble armies 
that have fought on many a field for our common country, 
it will be my earnest endeavor not to disappoint your expecta- 
tions. I feel the full weight of the responsibilities now de- 
volving upon me, and I know that if they are met it will be 
due to those armies and above all to the favor of that 
Providence which leads both nations and men." 

The President and Mrs. Lincoln, of course, invited 
the new lieutenant-general and his wife to dinner, but 
the former had already hurried down to Fortress 
Monroe and could not return in time. Many another 
social diversion was in waiting for him when he reap- 
peared, for people of every class seemed eager to meet, 
see, and hear him. and a more elusive celebrity never 
crossed the threshold of Willard's, a more obstinate and 

276 



GRANT AND LIEUTENANT-GENERALSHIP 

intractable arrival never baffled a caller or balked 
a correspondent. Conferences with the President, with 
Ilalleck, Stanton, Wilson (then at the head of the 
Cavalry Bureau), and the chiefs of the departments 
of supply took up every moment of his time. He could 
not, he said, accept social invitations. He would not, 
said Rawlins, accord interviews, or what at that time 
passed for such, for the art was in its infancy. He was 
bent on getting out of Washington and away to the 
front at the earliest possible moment, and, leaving scores 
of invitations unaccepted, the new general-in-chief took 
over the duties hitherto devolving upon Halleck, leaving 
to that scientific soldier the improvised office of chief- 
of-staff U. S. Army, while Rawlins, the indispensable, 
took the field as chief-of-staff to the lieutenant-general 
commanding. Just as unobtrusively as he had come, 
Grant vanished from Washington, and presently pitched 
his tent with those of the silently waiting Army of the 
Potomac — the most momentous coming, probably, in 
all its history. 

For it was a noble command. Granted to the 
Cumberland and the Tennessee everything ever claimed 
for either by their most ardent friends, neither at Don- 
elson nor Murfreesboro, at Shiloh nor Corinth, at 
Vicksburg, Champion's Hill nor Chattanooga had they 
encountered such generals and such troops as from the 
outset were pitted against the Army of the Potomac. 
The flower of the Confederate forces were these men 
of Lee, Longstreet and Stonewall Jackson. Time and 
again, valiant, subordinate and superbly self-sacrificing, 
had the men of the Potomac answered every demand, 
no matter how ill-advised, and loyally had their regi- 
mental officers and the rank and file supported every 
general appointed over them — no matter how ill-fitted 
for command. Whatsoever may be said of their im- 
mediate leaders, no man can ever justly asperse the 
loyalty, the devotion, the discipline and valor of the 

277 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Army of the Potomac. And now, silent and subordi- 
nate as ever, it stood to arms to droop its colors to the 
silent man from the West, and take its orders hence- 
forth from him who came to them a stranger. At 
Gettysburg, so said Lincoln, their myriad dead had 
given the " full measure of devotion," but there were 
days to come in which in fuller measure still, duty to 
this stem, implacable soldier should demand of them 
tlieir utmost endeavor — their uttermost devotion, for. 
far beyond the breaking strain of the disciplined soldiery 
of the old world, it was their destiny to be tried by 
Grant, and it is their deathless glory that to the utter- 
most they ajiswcred him, and died by thousands that in 
the supreme grapple twixt North and South the L'nion 
at last should triumph and the nation live. 

Over that fearful progress from the Rapidan to the 
James, with its days of fierce hand-to-hand fighting in 
the Wilderness, of wild charge and countercharge at 
Spottsylvania, of human sacrifice and fruitless, sense- 
less assault at Cold Harbor, it is not the purpose of this 
chronicle to linger. Ever)' general yet pitted against 
Lee in Mrginia had recoiled before him, and this Grant 
would not do. If in headlong assault he could not 
drive him from his intrenched lines, he slipped around 
the eastward flank and so bore ever onward. H beaten 
back at any point along that deadly front, he kept the 
columns ever winding southward, sending back the in- 
spiring words, '* We will fight it out on this line if it 
takes all summer." Never before had Northern gen- 
eral taken such punishment and still pushed on. 
" Butcher " they cried at the North, as the fearful list 
of casualties grew .ind multiplied. Cold-blooded and 
brutal they pictured and denounced him, sitting placidly 
and smoking and whittling while, in the execution of 
his implacable will, his men were dying by hundreds — 
and yet did not Rawlins and Bowers tell us how, when 
the tidings came that Gordon's furious onset had 

278 



GRANT AND LIEUTENANT-GENERALSHIP 

smashed in Sedgwick's right, with heavy loss in killed 
and captured, though with outward calm the command- 
ing general gave every needful order to restore the falter- 
ing centre, no sooner were the adjutants sent scurrying 
away than, turning from the silent few at his camp fire. 
Grant hastily entered his tent, threw himself face down- 
Vv^ard on his cot, and for the first time in his known life 
gave way to emotion uncontrollable. Even Rawlins stood 
awe-stricken. Sympathetic and tender-hearted as he 
knew his chief to be, never had he dreamed that Grant 
could so feel and sufl:'er. The death of " Aleck " Hays, 
shot dead the night before, heading his division, had 
deeply moved the General, and now came this crushing 
blow that wrecked his right wing, yet must not swerve 
him from his purpose. Whatever happened, though the 
Army of the Potomac died in its tracks and he with it, it 
must never again turn back, and it never did. Though 
thousands of its chosen strewed the pathway from Ger- 
manna Ford to the James, there was still left to Grant 
enough to pen the army of Lee within the lines of Peters" 
burg and Richmond. Once there he could hold him for 
the final overthrow. 

Daringly, brilliantly, bravely as it had fought from 
the start, the Southern army outdid itself in that marvel- 
lous defense. The leaders well knew that this was to be 
the supreme test, that at last there had come to head 
the Northern host a man who never yet had lost a 
battle, and who now took the field with an army in the 
pink of condition, far outnumbering theirs. Lee could 
muster but sixty-five thousand all told ; the South had 
sent its last levies into action, " robbing the very cradle 
and the grave " for men to fill its depleted ranks. The 
North, though divided in sentiment and cursed with 
" copperheads," had far from exhausted either its men 
or its means. Grant had still abundant resources on 
which to draw^ Lee had little or nothing. And yet Lee 
and his officers rode into that campaign like Paladins of 

279 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

old, for a wave of religious fervor had swept over the 
Southern camps during the winter agone, and, as though 
consecrated to their task, shriving themselves as did the 
Nonnans the night before Hastings, fared forth into 
battle with faith in their hearts and prayer on their 
set lips. Weaker in numbers they were, but never were 
they stronger, and so the Union army found before ever 
they reached the bloody angle of Spottsylvania, and the 
men of the Potomac could only strive on, fight on, dog- 
gedly, loyally, but with hardly a sign of cheer, enthu- 
siasm and never of exultation. 

It had been planned and hoped that the Army of the 
James, under Benjiunin F. Butler, should so vehemently 
threaten Richmond froni the east as to compel Lee to 
look to his rear, and leave fewer men to oppose the Anny 
of the Potomac ; but Butler compelled not at all. It had 
been planned that our cavalry, now under Sheridan, 
should do great things in aid of the slow-moving in- 
fantry, but the cavalry coq^s had not come to know their 
new leader, or he them, or even himself. It is no dis- 
paragement to the L'uion cavalr)' that even after its 
sturdy work under Gregg and Buford at Gettysburg, it 
was still, in the spring of '64, innocent of its higher pur- 
poses and possibilities. Even Grant sent and Sheridan 
led it astray on an almost fruitless raid. They dealt 
death at Yellow Taveni to the plumed leader, Stuart, of 
the Southern Horse. They might even have ridden into 
Richmond, but they rode back. Not yet did Sheridan 
see his powers, even though his great leader had pre- 
dicted that in the little Fourth infantryman of the 50's, 
the snappy division commander of the Cumberland, 
there should stand revealed the great cavalry leader of 
the close of the war. 

Oddly enough it was Halleck who suggested his 
name. 

Grant had been impressed with the fact that, even 
after Stuart's overthrow by Gregg at Gettysburg and his 

280 



GRANT AND LIEUTENANT-GENERALSHIP 

senseless self-separation from Lee before it, the glamour 
of his previous achievements had given the Southern 
cavalry prestige over the sturdy horsemen by this time 
developed in the North. What was needed was a man 
to command and lead our cavalry. " How would 
Sheridan do?" asked Halleck, when the matter was 
brought up in conference at the War Department. " The 
very man," said Grant. And so in addition to Grant, 
imported from the West to " push things " in Virginia, 
and to " Baldy " Smith (whom the Army of the Potomac 
for old times' sake might have welcomed, as the Army 
of the James, its chief at least, did not), and to Wilson, 
speedily announced as division commander, there also 
came to them, raised from an infantry division to com- 
mand a cavalry corps, that black-eyed, swarthy, short- 
legged son of Ohio from the Army of the Cumberland 
whom everybody knew as " Phil " Sheridan. The great 
mass of the Army of the Potomac, the infantry, ac- 
cepted in silence and subordination the new dispensation. 
They still retained the generals under whom they had 
fought, and to many of whom they were attached. 
Meade, as commander of the army, Hancock, Warren 
and Sedgwick, heading the three corps, " Old Bum " 
commanding an outside organization independent of 
Meade, but acting under Grant — these were all Army 
of the Potomac men. 

But it was different in the cavalry. It is true that 
their former commanders, Stoneman and Pleasonton, 
had earlier left them, that glorious John Buford had 
sickened and died, that fiery Kilpatrick had been shifted 
to other fields. They still had with them, modest, silent, 
but a superb soldier, David McM. Gregg. They had 
their younger brigadiers, Merritt, Custer and Davies. 
They took it much amiss that over the heads of these 
should be placed the infantry division leader, Sheridan, 
and over the heads of Merritt, Custer and others, as 
division commanders, should be set their junior on the 

281 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

list of brigadiers, who, though the right-hand man of 
Grant in the West, was in their eyes the " Engineer " 
Wilson. Finally another importation from the infantry, 
if not from the West, was assigned to them, General 
Torbert, he being given one of their three divisions, and 
so the cup of the cavalr)- was filled with bitterness. And 
yet, almost from the start, they began to like Sheridan, 
and when, in less than a fortnight of the start, Meade 
and Sheridan clashed in emphatic and spectacular de- 
bate, and even the suli)hurous battle fumes about them 
lost by contrast something of their satanic character, the 
cavalr>' began to swear with, instead of at, Sheridan. 
After Winchester and Cedar Creek they swore by him. 

Grant's reorganization of the cavalry corps of the 
Army of the Potomac was later justified in the results 
obtained ; but that, too, was something for which he had 
to wait in patience. He had troubles enough on his 
hands as the summer of '64 came on. The plans were 
admirable. Sherman with his now enthusiastic and 
united army was to advance on Atlanta from the Ten- 
nessee, and keep Johnston busy in the West. In Vir- 
ginia Lee's sixty-five thousand in the field were to be 
assailed by Meade and Burnside with no less than ninety 
thousand men, all under the eye of Grant ; while Butler, 
far down the James, was to threaten Richmond with 
twenty thousand from the east. Ord and Crook, each 
with a fonuidable column, received orders to descend 
upon the upjxT James froin the northwest, and it was 
confidently hoped that long ere the summer solstice, 
Richmond and gold would fall. But when the autumn 
came Richmond was as stanch as ever, gold had gone 
soaring to 290, and Grant had met with setbacks in- 
numerable, and yet there he was indomitably hanging on, 
his lines investing Petersburg, his supplies coming easily 
by water to City Point. 

Then by way of diversion Lee sent Early into Mary- 
land and scared Washington out of its seven senses. 

282 



GRANT AND LIEUTENANT-GENERALSHIP 

Then Grant sent Sheridan to the Shenandoah to put an 
end to all that sort of thing in future, and Sheridan's 
successes so broadened and inspired him and all who 
served with him — the cavalry and the Sixth Corps 
especially — that when in the early spring these travel- 
stained, but now confident and co-operating troopers 
trotted jauntily back to the Army of the Potomac, dull 
and dispirited after its ineffectual assaults and its long 
months in the trenches, and the jingling sabres and 
fluttering guidons came winding along the entire rear 
of the huddling groups in winter quarters, like some 
half-asleep, hibernating bruin the army seemed sud- 
denly to wake and give tongue, and volleys of chaflf and 
soldier satire went echoing through the sombre woods. 
It was the reveille of final victor)'. 



CHAPTER XXIX 

THE LULL BEFORE THE STORM 

But while the Anny of the Potomac had received 
without enthusiasm the news of the elevation to supreme 
command of this man from the West, there were a cer- 
tain few that rejoiced with exceeding joy — West 
Pointers, men like Shemian, AlcPherson, Sheridan, 
Ingalls, Augur, Macfeely, Wilson, Comstock and 
Horace Porter — men of brains and soldiership who 
either had known and loved him in the old days, or had 
learned to know and love him in the new. The men of 
the Potomac had not heard the sweetest things of him 
in letters from their comrades of Hooker's Corps sent 
to aid him on the Tennessee. Hooker himself, chagrined 
at the failure of his attempt to take the upper hand, had 
been further aggrieved at the half whimsical but alto- 
gether true endorsement placed by Grant upon Hooker's 
characteristic report of his share in the battles about 
Chattanooga, in the course of which he claimed to have 
captured more artillery than, as Grant pointed out, was 
taken by the entire amiy. 

Nor had there been effusive welcome for the quiet- 
m.annered, plain-spoken Westerner when Meade, Han- 
cock, Warren and Sedgwick first called to pay their 
respects. They were courteous, subordinate, thoroughly 
soldierly. Moreover they had heard that " in spite and 
not because of " the rumors as to Grant's so-called 
habits, the gifted joumalist and keen obser\'er, sent by 
a far from friendly war secretary to closely watch every- 
thing that occurred at Grant's headquarters and report 
accordingly, had come, had seen and had been con- 
quered. Mr. Charles A. Dana, ten years Grant's senior, 
had become the stanch supporter of Grant, and declared 

284 




ollectiMiiol y H. Mcs.rxf 

GENERAL W. T. SHERMAN 



THE LULL BEFORE THE STORM 

him in his opinion the strongest and surest of our gen- 
erals in the field, even though of Sherman he had en- 
thusiastically penned to Stanton, " What a splendid 
soldier he is!" They came to greet the new chief 
loyally, as " the spirit of old West Point " demanded, 
yet they would have been less than men had they re- 
frained from curious study of the newcomer and com- 
mander, and among their individual cronies, from a cer- 
tain confidential comment. Quiet, unassuming, courteous 
but not effusive. Grant had in turn welcomed each caller, 
chatting preferably over Mexican war days with Meade 
and Sedgwick, of St Louis and its hospitable home- 
steads with Hancock, who, like Grant, had many a sweet 
association with Jefferson Barracks. He found at first 
no common ground with Warren — who had saved the 
second day at Gettysburg to Meade and the army, and 
had been rewarded by the command of the famous old 
Fifth Corps, who had dared to refrain from expected 
attack on an impossible position at Mine Run, and was 
as yet an untried corps leader in actual battle. The 
test was to come all too soon. 

But it was observed by those who had been with him 
in the West that Grant was not the hail-fellow-well-met 
of the Army of the Tennessee. There it had been : 
" Hello, Sherman! " " How are you, McPherson? " or 
the playful old army nickname by which he hailed 
Macfeely, or the cadet "' handle " to his classmate 
Quinby. So far as Sherman, at least, was concerned, 
too, the answering hail was ever " Hello, Grant " — 
utterly democratic and unmilitary, but characteristic of 
both. 

But now he had come to new and strange and far 
more precise surroundings. Now, from Meade down, 
except in personal chat with some old chum, the new 
commander addressed each officer by his formal title, 
save those of his staff and his deserved favorites, 
Sheridan and James H. Wilson. It was noted, too, that 

285 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Rawlins, the dominant man of the staff in the West — the 
man who stormed at anything and anybody, his chief not 
excepted, when he believed matters were going amiss — 
the man who had not scrupled to smash even Grant's 
champagne at Vicksburg, and who had never shrunk 
from urging his chief or dictating at times to division 
or even corps commanders — was now become somewhat 
silent and self repressive. Observant as ever, Rawlins 
deferred more to the commanding general, dictated less 
to the staff, and domineered not at all. It is well known 
that with three or four exceptions the " military family " 
about the chief in Mississippi needed just such a head as 
Rawlins, but now the keen Illinois soldier-lawyer found 
himself surrounded by men of far finer mold and char- 
acter — regulars and West Pointers, as a rule, and both 
among them and in his dealings with the generals of the 
Potomac, Rawlins seemed no longer what he assuredly 
was in the West — lord paramount at headquarters. Pie 
much missed Wilson, even though he found in Horace 
Porter a stanch, but less aggressive, supporter. He was 
not in good health. He had remarried, too, and in con- 
scientiously striving to conquer his one evil propensity 
had correspondingly robbed himself and the nation of 
that forcefulncss of expression which had exerted such 
marked influence for good in the battlings of various 
kinds in the armies of the West. 

There was, all things considered, something of con- 
straint about the new dispensation of the Army of the 
Potomac, even though there was none of the state and 
style maintained in the long days of McClellan, the 
brief incumbency of Burnside, or the vainglorious reign 
of " Fighting Joe." With Meade came dignity and 
courtesy commingled — except under fire. The soul of 
civility and consideration ordinarily, Meade was ab- 
solutely unapproachable in battle. He seemed inspired 
with rage with even,' one about him. In this he was 
the antithesis of Warren, who was placid, suave and 

386 



THE LULL BEFORE THE STORM 

sweet mannered in the heat of action — and nowhere 
else. Until Warren got fairly into a fight he was 
captious, carping, critical, faultfinding, almost sneering 
— a man who " got on the nen^es "of many a staff ofificer 
who came to him with an order, and it was this unhappy 
trait that led to the otherwise unjust undoing of one 
of the best and bravest of the corps commanders of the 
Army of the Potomac. 

Even in his personal appearance and equipment the 
new commanding general had brought about a change, 
or some one had done it for him. Neat always as a new 
pin, Grant nevertheless wore his uniform loosely, and 
in the West had appeared in as few of the " frills " of his 
rank as could be dispensed with. Now, as lieutenant- 
general commanding all the forces in the field, he donned 
the new frock coat, fairly bristling with buttons, 
ordered the absurd regulation cape overcoat then pre- 
scribed for officers of all grades, bought the highest and 
most portentous of the black felt hats with gold cord 
and acorn tips, then affected by many of our generals, 
ordered the costly horse furniture, including the blue and 
gold schabracque, and the brass mounted bridle pre- 
scribed by the regulations (a something at which his 
" horse sense " revolted), and the first time he appeared 
in saddle on the march that beautiful May morning, with 
the Army of the Potomac trudging cheerily along to 
Germanna Ford, Grant sat in saddle watching them go 
striding by, his new coat buttoned throughout, his waist 
girded with brand new silken sash of buff net, and over 
it the gold-striped belt of Russia leather — all as trim 
and precise as any of the Potomac's own. Out West, 
where he hailed from, Herron was about the only 
"dandy " general, though McPherson, even in the final 
campaign in front of Atlanta, was conspicuous for the 
accuracy of his dress and equipments. Grant's old 
friends of Donelson and Shiloh would have looked in 
mild wonderment now, and the soldiers of the Army of 

287 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

the Potomac, as they trudged by, glanced quickly up 
from underneath the drooping visor of their forage 
caps, trying to take his measure as he sat composedly 
smoking. 

Before they crossed that Virginia Rubicon, the 
Rapidan, it had been settled that the new general at 
least knew how to ride. Ten days later it was said of 
him that he seemed to dread no obstacle as too much for 
his men. Later still, down near the North Anna as 
Horace Porter tells it, the soldiers had satisfied them- 
selves that he was as imperturbable under fire as in his 
daily walks in life. Sitting placid, unmoved and cross- 
legged at the foot of a tree, writing despatches to Wash- 
ington, with the fragments of bursting shells hurtling 
about him. Grant attracted the attention of the wounded 
of a Wisconsin regiment being aided to the rear. They 
were doing no cheering just then for anybody, but in his 
own inimitable way the American volunteer gave audible 
vent to his views in the pithy vernacular of the camp: 
" L'lysses doesn't scare worth a damn." 

Neither did they cheer him as, after that frightful 
progress to the James, they swung out across the long 
pontoons toward the southern shore. Cold Harbor had 
been the final test both for them and for him. Never 
again would Grant order frontal assault pushed home 
upon Lee's men in force and fortified or intrenched 
position. No good ever came of it, and after the ex- 
perience of Spottsylvania — where, led by a peerless 
soldier, Emory Upton, the assaulting column pierced 
the centre only to find itself in a network of intrench- 
ments— Grant's orders to attack Cold Harbor should 
never have been given. Heaven knows they cost us 
heavily and filled his heart with sorrow unutterable. 
And still he pushed on — on. ever relentlessly on, until 
brought to bay in front of the lines at Petersburg, which 
Butler, " Baldy " Smith, and their men had somehow 
failed to bag for him as had been hoped and planned. 

288 



THE LULL BEFORE THE STORM 

It is said by certain Southern historians that Grant 
had been drinking during the campaign of the James. 
This gives an exaggerated idea of the facts. There 
were a few occasions on which, as Porter tells us, late 
at night about the camp fire, his officers brewed a toddy 
and the General would take a sip. There was one oc- 
casion after long and heavy strain, when in presence 
of Butler and " Baldy " Smith he took two drinks of 
whiskey in the course of an hour, and as he declared, in 
his utter frankness, that he had had one before, the 
effect was to be expected. Two drinks were quite 
enough to flush his face and thicken his speech, even 
though his vision and judgment might remain unim- 
paired. This incident was bruited to his detriment 
within that hot summer month of June, but the War 
Department could no longer interfere with Grant — 
and the President would not. 

That summer of '64, however, had strained almost 
to the breaking point the faith the nation had learned to 
place in Grant, and had brought most grievous anxiety 
to the administration. As the autumn wore on, with 
no new gains and not a few reverses for the Army of 
the Potomac (notably the affairs on the Weldon rail- 
way), and notwithstanding the success of Sherman in 
the West and the triumph of Sheridan in the Shenan- 
doah, " the war is a failure " was the cry of the op- 
ponents of the Union party all over the North, and even 
Abraham Lincoln at a time doubted the probability of his 
re-election. The nation was stancher and stronger than 
appeared in the public prints. November saw the cause 
of the Union vindicated at the polls. Then came the 
meteoric launch of Sherman's columns from Atlanta to 
the Sea, the utter collapse of Hood's army when Thomas 
struck it south of Nashville; and, in the hope of bet- 
ter things with the coming of spring, the administration 
and the people strove to possess their souls in peace until 
the Virginia roads were once again passable, and the 
19 289 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

armies about Richmond could hope to move. Meantime, 
Httle though they knew it, the patience and the fortitude 
of Grant himself had been tried to the uttermost, and he 
had been brought to the brink of the one wrong of his 
career — thus far, at least. Slow to wrath, patient and 
just, it is recorded of him that only twice during the 
entire war did he lose his temper and inflict personal 
rebuke or punishment, once to a coward in the West, 
once to a brute of a teamster who was beating over the 
head a helpless horse. On this latter occasion Grant 
Hung himself from saddle at the sudden sight, and be- 
fore any of his staff knew what was coming, had seized 
the hulking fellow by the throat and shaken him furi- 
ously. All manner of things Grant could see, smile at 
and take no offense ; as when a Western colonel, igno- 
rant of the General's immediate presence, damned young 
Fred for butting into him at blundering gallop ; as when 
the young newspaper man, finding Grant and certain 
of his staff at breakfast, seated himself uninvited at the 
table with the calm assurance of his years and the re- 
mark, " I believe I'll take a snack myself, if there's no 
objection," But, Grant could never tolerate a bully; 
he hated a liar and a coward, and the one thing that 
seemed to make him impatient was incapacity to act at 
once when orders required — and this trait led to the 
famous, but mercifully arrested, order for the relief of 
George II. Thomas on the eve of the battle of Nash- 
ville. 

Wiicn Sherman started on his renowned march to the 
sea, his army was thoroughly " weeded," as it were, 
and ever^'thing not in the very best of condition was 
left behind. Wilson, sent by Grant to reorganize and 
command the cavalry of the West, had been ordered by 
Sherman to fit out one division. Kilpatrick's, to ac- 
company the march. In thoroughly equipping this com- 
mand, therefore. Wilson practically stripped his own. 
The depleted and dismounted regiments were sent back 

290 



THE LULL BEFORE THE STORM 

to Nashville to refit, to be recruited, if possible, and 
rehorsed as soon as possible. The Fourth and Twenty-. 
Third Corps were left to defend Tennessee in case Hood 
should decide on a blow at the North, rather than a 
pursuit of Sherman. George H. Thomas had been 
chosen to head the Union forces, consisting of two small 
corps, a number of broken-up commands, and a lot of 
broken-down men. A better defensive fighter had not 
been developed in the entire war, but he had to im- 
provise much of his defensive army. 

Later in November, long before Wilson had suc- 
ceeded, even by strenuous efTorts, in getting remounts 
for his cavalry, the Southern force came sweeping north- 
ward, driving before it the two corps led by Stanley and 
Schofield, inferior in numbers and lacking cavalry sup- 
port. Hood's generals included such distinguished 
division chiefs as " Pat " Cleburne, Cheatham, Stewart 
and Stephen D. Lee, and his horsemen were led by N. B. 
Forrest, than whom there was no more aggressive 
trooper, north or south. Back from the line of the 
Duck River the Southern general drove the Union corps, 
many of Schofield's narrowly escaping capture as they 
slipped past Hood's encircling arms at Spring Flill. At 
the Harpeth Schofield and Stanley halted and faced 
about. Strong entrenchments covered the approaches 
to the little town of Franklin. Here that dull Novem- 
ber afternoon was fought a battle furious in its char- 
acter and fearful in its casualties. Time and again 
Hood's veterans charged the Union lines, only to be 
mowed down by hundreds, to suffer almost irreparable 
loss in generals, field officers, and in men. No less than 
six of Hood's division or brigade leaders fell dead along 
that blazing front — gallant Cleburne among them — and 
so tremendous was the punishment administered that 
when finally Schofield and Stanley resumed their north- 
ward march to join Thomas at Nashville, they were 
practically unpursued, save by Forrest's vigilant 

291 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

troopers, and even these were held at respectful dis- 
stance. FrankHn took the heart out of Hood's army for 
the time being: Nashville, which speedily followed, 
utterly destroyed it. 

Yet when Hood's colors appeared along the line of 
the Brentwood Hills, some five miles to the south of 
Nashville, and the now cautious general proceeded to 
the investment of the state capital, the garrison was 
still in no condition for aggressive fight. Men enough 
to defend the fortifications had Thomas, and that was 
all. Moreover, for the moment, it was quite enough. 
The bloody and disastrous assaults at Franklin had 
taught Hood never again to attack the Union lines. He 
sat him down in sight of the capital and waited, while 
Thomas was bending every effort to gather about him 
the widely dispersed forces of his military domain, and 
while Wilson, with all the vim and energy of his nature, 
was calling in the cavalr^'men of the neighboring states 
and getting them, somehow, anyhow, into saddle. 
Horses had to be had at any cost. Far and near his 
foragers impressed the private stock of friend or foe. 
The vice-president elect, still a citizen of Tennessee, 
and one of the " political " brigadiers of the volunteer 
anny, found himself bereft of his own carriage team. 
But Wilson knew the supreme importance of the oc- 
casion : Cavalry in sufficient numbers must be im- 
provised against these experts of Forrest. It was the 
first of December when the victors of Franklin fell 
back into the lines of Nashville. It was December 2nd 
when Forrest's guidons fluttered into view along the 
southward heights. By December 3rd Hood's whole 
army was lined up against the works of Nashville, the 
great supply depot and strategic centre of the south- 
west, and by December 5th the Northern press, never 
too wise, was clamoring for a " knock out." Gold was 
still soaring. Sherman was swallowed up somewhere 
in Georgia. Grant's army was stopped in front of 

292 



THE LULL BEFORE THE STORM 

Petersburg. The people were impatient, unreasoning, 
unreasonable; the administration was worried and 
harassed ; the President looked haggard ; the Secretary 
of War, never saintly in temperament, had worked him- 
self into a frenzy of nervous irritability. Even Grant, 
who was just returning from a triumphant visit to 
New York — whither family matters had called him, 
and where all Gotham thronged to do him honor and 
vainly besought him for a speech — began to worry 
under the rain of question, suggestion and criticism. 
" Thomas must attack and destroy Hood at once," was 
the burden of the cry, *' or Hood will be crossing the 
Cumberland and sweeping on the Ohio." 

By December 6th Thomas had over fifty thousand 
infantry and artillery, but his cavalry was still far in- 
ferior in number to Forrest's, and Thomas and Wilson 
knew the importance of cavalry in the attack of 
Southern troops in position, against whom a frontal 
assault, unsupported by attack in flank, was a well- 
nigh hopeless proposition. Wilson had assured Thomas 
that by December 7th or 8th he would have remounted 
almost every horseman, and could probably put ten 
thousand riders into the field. His men were in the 
" remount " camps on the north bank, over against 
Nashville. His five thousand effectives were getting 
rested and reshod after the strenuous work against 
Forrest. Hood was showing no disposition to attack, 
or even to reach round the flanks and reconnoitre the 
Cumberland. There could be no reinforcements of 
consequence coming to him. Everything else in the 
extreme south had been hurried ofif to oppose Sherman, 
yet by December 6th the War Department and the 
press of the North were in a mad rage of impatience 
with Thomas. Gone and forgotten were the plaudits 
that followed Alill Springs, Chickamauga, Missionary 
Ridge ; gone and forgotten were the tributes, public and 
private, to his sound judgment and superb soldiership. 

293 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Even Grant, usually stolid, having begun to urge and 
prod, was now demanding. At a distance of something 
like a thousand miles from the field, Grant, Hallcck and 
Stanton were sure they better saw and understood the 
entire situation than did Thomas on the spot — Thomas 
who had got Hood precisely where he wanted him, far 
from possible support, far from his impoverished base, 
and who fully meant, if given a few days' time and ten 
thousand cavalry, to fall upon that venturesome leader 
and wreck him utterly. 

But meantime the fates had conspired with adverse 
influences in Washington and at Grant's headquarters 
toward the undoing of Thomas himself — the man of 
men in the Amiy of the West — " the noblest Roman 
of them all." 

Early as December 2nd Stanton had wired Grant : 

" The President feels solicitous about the disposition of Gen- 
eral Thomas to lay (sic) in fortifications for an indefinite period 
until Wilson gets equipments. This looks like the McClellan 
and Rosccrans strategy of do-nothing and let the rebels raid 
the country." 

And Grant had wired Thomas before Hood had 
been there more than half a day: 

" If Hood is permitted to remain quietly about Nashville 
you will lose all the road back to Chattanooga. . . . Should 
he attack you it is all well, but if he does not, you should 
attack him before he fortifies." 

And later the same day, December 2nd : 

" With your citizen employes armed you can move out of 
Nashville and force the enemy to retire or fight upon ground 
of your own choosing. . . . You will now suffer incalculable 
injury upon your railroad if Hood is not speedily disposed of. 
Put forth, therefore, every possible exertion to attain this 
end." 

To this and to similar urgings from Halleck, Thomas 
replied, giving the situation in full, saying that he had 

294 



THE LULL BEFORE THE STORM 

now sufficient infantry, but setting forth that in order 
to dispose of Hood effectively he must have cavalr}\ 
and that he would have enough in two or three days. 

On December 3rd Thomas had again assured Hal- 
leck by wire that Hood was quiescent, that there would 
be ten thousand cavalry in saddle in less than a week, 
and then he could and would take care of Hood. But 
it seems that assurance was insufficient. Halleck in- 
sisted, December 5th, that no less than twenty-two 
thousand horses had been issued to the cavalry since 
September 20th, and at 8 p.m. on the 5th Grant again 
urged Thomas to action, and again Thomas, patiently 
but cogently, said : " I do not think it prudent to attack 
Hood with less than six thousand cavalry to cover my 
flanks." Then later on, December 6th, as though 
Washington and City Point could no longer brook the 
delay, Grant wired at 4 p.m.: "Attack Hood at once 
and wait no longer for a remount of your cavalry." 

To this there could be only one reply — prompt ac- 
ceptance of the order. Back came Thomas's despatch : 
" I will make the necessary disposition and attack Hood 
at once." It came late at night on the 6th, and all day 
of the 7th Thomas and his aides were busily occupied 
with the details of the attack in force. Frontal attack 
on Hood's intrenched lines, as has been said, was not 
to be thought of, and Grant, who had tried such attack 
with disastrous result at Spottsylvania and Cold Harbor, 
might have known it. Thomas's plan from the first 
had been to send Wilson with at least six thousand 
troopers out to the southwest to circle Hood's left 
flank and rear, to push the Twenty-third Corps far out 
on the heels of Wilson, to attack from the west, and 
then when the Southern flank had been crumbled, to 
turn the partial attack of his centre and left into an 
assault in force. 

Wilson and his men had still to be moved over 
from the north bank. It all took time, and Stanton 

295 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

waxed well-nigh frantic. " Thomas seems unwilling 
to attack because it is hazardous, as if all war was any- 
thing but hazardous. If he wait for Wilson to get 
ready Gabriel will be blowing his last horn," was Stan- 
ton's wire to Grant, on the morning of December 7th, 
and such his reference to two of the very best officers 
that ever fought. 

And then said Grant over the wires to Washington : 
" You probably saw my orders to Thomas to attack. 
If he does not do it promptly I would recommend 
superseding him by Schofield, leaving Thomas subor- 
dinate." 

On the evening of the 8th there came a despatch 
to Washington, not from Thomas or one in authority, 
but from a captain in the quartermaster's department, 
to the effect that the enemy had a large force of artillery 
along the south bank of the Cumberland below Nash- 
ville, also that the " rebel general Lyon holds the same 
bank, but does not fight gunboats." And though 
Thomas had gunboats and cavalry patrolling the 
Cumberland, closely watching for any indication of 
an intent to cross, and finding none, the administration 
and Grant, too, became possessed with the conviction 
that Hood was planning to send Forrest across the 
Cumberland, and to follow in his tracks, whereas Hood 
was doing the very opposite. On December 6th he had 
sent Forrest with most of his cavalry, backed by a 
strong division of infantry, to Murfreesboro, four days' 
march away. Yet on the 8th Grant would have it that 
Hood was bent on crossing the Cumberland, and wir- 
ing Thomas again : " By all means avoid the con- 
tingency of a foot race to see which, you or Hood, can 
beat to the Ohio." Then as Thomas on the spot could 
not be made to see that Hood was trj'ing to cross, there 
was sent to Washington, at noon on the 9th of Decem- 
ber, Grant's despatch : " No attack yet made by Thomas. 

296 



THE LULL BEFORE THE STORM 

Please telegraph orders relieving him at once and plac- 
ing SchoHeld in command." 

Had that order been carried out, and Thomas de- 
posed at the moment when his plans were complete and 
his forces prepared for action, a wrong irreparable 
would have been done, yet such was the attitude of the 
administration, of the press, and of the general public 
at the moment, that it probably would have been ap- 
plauded. Even Halleck, who believed in Thomas and 
who had exalted him above Grant at Corinth, had that 
day wired him of Grant's extreme dissatisfaction. "If 
you wait till General Wilson mounts all his cavalry, 
you will wait till doomsday," he said, and Thomas, loyal 
and subordinate to the last, sent his soldierly and 
tempered reply : " I regret that General Grant should 
feel dissatisfaction at my delay in attacking the enemy. I 
feel conscious that I have done everything in my power 
to prepare, and that the troops could not have been got- 
ten ready before this, and if he should order me re- 
lieved I will submit without a murmur. A terrible 
storm of freezing rain has come on since daylight which 
will render an attack impossible until it breaks." 

On the same day, December 9th, Thomas had also 
telegraphed Grant direct : " I had nearly completed my 
preparations to attack to-morrow morning, but a ter- 
rible storm of freezing rain has come on to-day which 
will make it impossible for us to fight to any advantage. 
. . . Major-General Halleck informs me you are 
very much dissatisfied with my delay in attacking. I 
can only say I have done all in my power to prepare, 
and if you should deem it necessary to relieve me I shall 
submit without a murmur," 

That freezing storm lasted three days and nights, 
sheeting the fields and hillsides in a glare of ice on which 
horses slipped and fell, and men could not keep their 
footing. It swept the valley of the Cumberland, an icy 
blast, a pitiless, drenching, slanting deluge that stung as 

297 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

it struck and froze as it fell and sent men and beasts 
cowering to cover. It would have been impossible to 
march a squadron of cavalr}' in face of it, and the men 
afoot could hardly crawl. When first informed of the 
new reason for delay, Grant wired suspending the 
order for Thomas's relief " until it is seen whether he 
will do anything," yet with what seems to have been a 
growing conviction that Thomas would not strike no 
matter what the weather, for, after waiting all day 
long on the loth, hearing nothing but further details 
of the storm, and all the morning of the nth, Grant 
could stand it no longer. At 4 p.m. he wired direct: 
" Let there be no further delay. I am in hopes of re- 
ceiving word from you to-day announcing that you have 
moved. Delay no longer for weather or reinforce- 
ments." To which at 10.30 p.m. Thomas replied : " I 
will obey as promptly as possible. . . . The whole 
country is covered with a perfect sheet of ice and sleet. 
. . . I would have done so (attacked) yesterday had 
it not been for the storm." 

It was the last of Thomas's despatches to his now 
utterly un-Grantlike chief. The storm was still raging 
in Tennessee, but all was quiet on the Potomac, save in 
the neighborhood of Stanton. The 12th of December 
passed without change at Nashville, and the 13th found 
Grant at City I'oint, unable longer to control his im- 
patience or himself. It must be owned that he had been 
subjected to severe strain. Now, issuing orders for 
General John A. Logan to go at once to Nashville, and 
then, before Logan could have gone half way, Grant 
decided himself to follow; steamed around to the 
Potomac and up to Washington, where, on the evening 
of the 15th, he had a conference with the President, 
Stanton and Halleck, insisting now on the immediate 
relief of Thomas, then hastened to his room at Wil- 
lard's to prepare for the journey by special train, and 
was stopped at or about 11 o'clock by the telegraphic 

29R 



THE LULL BEFORE THE STORM 

tidings that Thomas at last had struck, that Hood's left 
wing was crushed. Turning to a tnisted friend, Grant 
removed for a moment the inevitable cigar from his 
lips, quietly remarked, '* I guess we'll not go after all," 
then sat him down, and, true to his truthful self, wired 
Thomas that he was on his way to Nashville, but now 
in view of Thomas's splendid success would go no 
further. To this he added his hearty congratulations. 
And yet Thomas's splendid success was at that time 
only a moiety of the still more splendid success of the 
1 6th. With Wilson and his cavalry whirling ever upon 
Hood's left and rear, capturing battery after battery, 
taking in reverse one position after another, doing 
everj'where the lion's share of the work and proving be- 
yond peradventure Thomas's claim, that without cavalry 
decisive victory, if not successful attack, had been im- 
possible, the great defensive fighter of the West had be- 
come the irresistibly aggressive leader who, by night- 
fall of the second day, had captured half the guns of 
the Southern host, and sent the beaten battalions of 
Hood's hard fighting army fleeing for their lives back 
to the sorrowing land from which they came, Wilson 
and his exultant troopers hacking furiously at their 
heels, that young whirlwind of a leader himself head- 
ing charge after charge, and holding up far to the south 
of the abandoned field only long enough to receive from 
Thomas in person most fervent thanks and congratula- 
tion, and to hear the nearest approach to an expletive 
that ever fell from those bearded lips — pure of speech 
as ever were Grant's — " Dang it to hell, Wilson, didn't 
I say we could lick 'em? " 



CHAPTER XXX 

OBSTACLES AND DELAYS 

When Grant set forth for Germanna Ford as the 
head of the armies of the United States, he appeared, 
as Porter tells us, in complete uniform. Somebody, too 
— probably his most potent counsellor, Julia Dent — had 
persuaded him to wear thread gloves as more elegant 
than buckskin, but by the third day little was left of 
the gloves, and riding gauntlets reappeared. By the 
same time, too, he had found sash and sword more or 
less in his way, as he was frequently dismounting, 
pencilling orders and despatches, or squatting cross- 
legged on the ground with his pad on his left forearm, 
or a knee, and his cigar grii)pcd in his teeth. A week 
in the Wilderness had taken much of the " style " out of 
the Anny of the Potoinac. Men were ridding them- 
selves of overcoats and even blankets, so as to " march 
light." Officers were shedding sashes and throwing 
loose their coats. Grant hated a buttoned-up uniform 
and wore his as loosely as possible, finally shifting with 
a sigh of satisfaction into the loose-fitting sack of blue 
flannel, suggested by some level-headed stalT officer as 
more seasonable for hot weather. By the time they 
crossed the James the gencral-in-chief was about as 
unpretentious a soldier in personal appearance as rode 
in that entire array. Even in his general's coat he 
could hardly have been impressive, as it is recorded that 
he encountered one morning a small drove of beef cat- 
tle headed obstinately the wrong way, and a perspiring 
herder shouted to him, " Say, stranger, just shoo them 
back there, will you?" And Grant, schooled from 
babyhood in the ways of the farm, " shooed " as re- 
quested and shooed to some purpose. 

300 



OBSTACLES AND DELAYS 

But while the Army of the Potomac saw little to call 
for admiration in the general appearance of the man 
from the West, there was one thing every horseman 
noted, and that was his riding. A surer seat could not 
be found, even among the " dandy " riders of the 
cavalry corps. No matter how his moimt might 
flounder, shy or stumble. Grant was " with him " and 
quick to gather and sustain. Yet in mounting and dis- 
mounting his was a method of neither the school nor 
the army. Grant swung out of saddle without the pre- 
liminary hold of the pommel, and in mounting seldom 
if ever found it necessary to grasp the lock of the mane 
or more than lay hand on pommel or cantle. Once he 
had his toe in the stirrup a mere straightening of the 
leg seemed to do the rest. In an instant he was seated 
lightly in saddle, and once there was entirely at home. 
" Posting " at the trot, except with an English saddle 
and the flat seat, was something unheard of in those 
days, and the old " Grimsley," now in its glass case at 
the Historical Society Library in Chicago, was still in 
'64 Grant's favorite saddle. The ponderous housings 
were far too hot for the summer campaign and were 
discarded until the staff settled down at City Point. 
Then " Cincinnati " sometimes appeared in the official 
robes, at which Grant more than once made a wry face. 
A horse, he said, had quite enough to carry on parade 
or march " without all that weighty jimcrackery." 
Another thing Grant had little use for was a military 
band. Every regiment originally had one, and greatly 
did some of them add to the cheer and spirit of the 
camp or march ; but before the third year only brigade 
bands were allowed, and even these in Grant's ears were 
too much of a good thing. "What's the joke?" he 
asked, the day the army emerged from the thickets and 
struck out for the open fields of Spottsylvania, and a 
band had burst into joyous music and the retinue of 
staff officers into a laugh. " They're playing ' Ain't I 

301 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Glad to Get Out of the Wilderness?'" was the an- 
swer, and Grant, who frankly owned he knew only one 
tune and was not sure of that, grinned and shrugged his 
shoulders. Later, when an ambitious leader, eager to 
do him honor, came with his band and struck up 
triumphant music close to headquarters, the command- 
ing general grimly stood it a moment or two, then whim- 
sically begged that the "noise " might be stopped, as 
there were matters of importance on which he wished 
to hear and speak, and the bandmaster doubtless felt 
deeply aggrieved. 

There was another adjunct to our military progress 
through \'irginia toward which Grant felt antipathy, 
due in great measure to his evil treatment at the hands 
of the newspapers in the West. Sherman, as far as he 
possibly could, had banished correspondents from the 
lines of his army, but Grant found the Army of the 
Press strongly intrenched in and about the Army of 
the Potomac. Some of these recorders of public events 
were great and gifted, most of them tried to be just and 
fair; many of them were, however, ignorant of military 
methods, and all of them were imbued with such zeal in 
the service of their respective papers (and ever)' paper 
of any standing at home had its special correspond- 
ent somewhere at the front) that " exclusive " and 
important information sometimes found its way into 
print in spite of injury' to the army and aid afforded 
the foe. 

Now, while Grant had about him as staff officers in 
Rawlins. Rowley, Bowers and Horace Porter a quar- 
tette of strong, silent, reliable men, he had had, as has 
been told, a number of detrimentals, most of whom had 
been discarded ere he left the West, yet one or two 
weak vessels were still with him when the forward move 
began. Correspondents, known to be such, were not 
harbored at headquarters of the army: nevertheless, 
there seemed to be " leaks." Correspondents were 

302 



OBSTACLES AND DELAYS 

numerous among the camp fires of the army and hover- 
ing about the outskirts of that sacred Httle bailiwick 
wherein RawHns sat, lynx-eyed, yet not as forceful 
as in the West. Grant had " grown," was conscious of 
his power, and constantly in correspondence with the 
President and the Secretary of War, and Rawlins could 
not presume now, as presume he had, with reason and 
good effect, in the West. Distinguished visitors came 
not infrequently from Washington, and brought friends 
with them and introduced them at Grant's headquarters. 
Among these came Elihu B. Washburne, still representa- 
tive of the Galena district in Congress, and here at least 
was a man even Rawlins could welcome with open arms. 
And Washburne brought with him a friend whom he 
introduced as Mr. Swinton, and told Grant he was an 
accomplished literary gentleman desirous of riding with 
the army, " in order that he might write its history at 
the end of the war." Mr. Swinton was welcomed as 
Washburne's friend so long as Washburne stayed, 
which was only until after the first few days of fierce 
battling in the Wilderness. It is not unlikely that 
this now famous historian hoped and expected that 
Washburne's introduction would be an open sesame to 
the doors of Grant's headquarters' mess. But Swinton 
was already known to the Army of the Potomac as one 
of the most active and gifted of the correspondents in 
the field, and beyond the tin plate, cup and camp chair 
indulged in by the staff, no accommodations were fur- 
nished Mr. Swinton, and these probably only for a day 
or two until he could make permanent arrangements 
with some of his press associates. It may be that, being 
eminent in his profession, Mr. Swinton resented it that 
the commanding general did not make him a member of 
the military household, but certain it is he speedily made 
himself persona ingrata and an impossibility at head- 
quarters. 

The night of May 3rd Grant had called Colonel 

303 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Rowley, who was to be officer on duty until dawn, and 
given him some detailed instructions and information. 
To Grant's amaze, he read them reported verbatim in 
the columns of a Richmond paper three days there- 
after. It was bad enough that they should appear in 
the columns of the Northern press, but that which was 
furnished one was almost instantly, in '64, made known 
to the other. 

A night or two later General Meade came to confer 
with Grant. The officers of the staff hospitably greeted 
those with Meade and drew them off to the camp fire 
in order that the chiefs might talk in private. Not five 
minutes later, sharp-eyed little Bowers caught sight of 
what seemed to be a human form crouching near to the 
tent in which sat the generals in low-toned conference, 
and easily within earshot. "Who's that?" he de- 
manded, sharply, of Rowley, big and muscular, and 
Rowley, striding thither at once, found a civilian 
squatted against a little tree, grabbed him by the coat col- 
lar, jerked him to his feet, with Western frankness 
expressing his opinion and with equal emphasis de- 
manding the meaning, of such conduct. The intruder 
was Mr. Swinton, and the result Mr. Swinton's exclu- 
sion from the charmed circle at headquarters for all 
time. Grant says he never saw him again, but was 
shortly called upon to save his life. A few weeks later 
General Meade came spurring to headquarters in great 
haste and some agitation. Burnside, commanding a 
separate force and not under Meade's direct orders, had 
found fresh occasion to look upon Mr. Swinton as a 
pernicious and prolific source of information to the 
enemy, had arrested Swinton forthwith and, as em- 
powered by the custom of war in like cases, had ordered 
him summarily shot. These were strenuous days in the 
history of the great republic, and even the press had 
sometimes to be chastened for sin against the common 
cause. But the nation was then in straits. Stern 

304 



OBSTACLES AND DELAYS 

measures had to be adopted, and though Grant promptly 
issued orders staying the shooting, he no longer stayed 
the order sending Mr. Swinton North. It is a whimsical 
illustration of our American methods that the next time 
the nation became involved in a general war " the boot 
was on the other foot." The nation was not in straits 
in '99. Stern methods were regarded as unnecessary 
by the press, at least, and the general commanding the 
forces of the United States on foreign soil had his face 
summarily slapped in presence of his staff by a cor- 
respondent with whom he had presumed to differ. 

And correspondents were not the only men to do 
Grant injury in many a way. Even soldiers whom he 
had most befriended turned spitefully upon him and 
found ready listeners at Washington. It was one of 
these that very summer of '64 who, owing very much 
to Grant, repaid him grievously. One of the McClellan 
clique of the old Army of the Potomac — an unsuc- 
cessful, even if able, division commander — he had found 
himself at Chattanooga without a command, when Grant 
set him on his feet, gave opportunity to his unquestioned 
talents, rewarded him by soldierly praise and endorse- 
ment, and finally won over a reluctant and long obstruc- 
tive Senate to the confirmation of his promotion to the 
double stars. 

When it later transpired that this officer could not 
subordinately serve under Butler, for which there may 
have been some excuse, and would persist in vehement 
criticism of Meade, for which there could be none, 
Grant realized that in estimating the real value of the 
man the Senate had been right and he had been wrong, 
and therefore released him from service with the army 
at the front without formally relieving him. The next 
thing known was that a prominent senator had a letter 
from this officer setting forth that Grant took whiskey 
and was perceptibly drunk the day he came with Gen- 
eral Butler to visit him at his headquarters. General 
20 305 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Butler, he declared, noted Grant's condition and would 
surely make use of it. This, it may be said right here, 
General Butler did not and would not do, even after 
he himself had been relieved from his command by 
Grant. Savagely as he attacked Grant in his later 
speeches and writings, and heartily as he hated him, 
Butler declared that he had not seen him either drink or 
drunk. 

And finally it was this officer who, long years later, 
published his Memoirs of service in the West and East, 
and as an appendix printed that remarkable and pathetic 
appeal, penned by Rawlins in the dead of night when 
he thought his chief lay sleeping off the effects of liquor, 
though it transpired that Grant was really ill, that the 
liquor he had seen him drink at Sherman's headquarters 
was prescribed by the senior medical officer there on 
duty, and that the wine bottles which stood upon the 
table near Grant's cabin door had been emptied by 
bibulous members of the staff. Barring a certain hesi- 
tancy in expressing himself in writing that evening, 
Rawlins had seen no other indication that Grant was 
drinking, but his anxiety was ever keen, his zeal was 
vigilant, his friendship and loyalty unbounded, and who 
could blame him? 

On the other hand, who can commend the publica- 
tion of such a letter by one who had once enjoyed the 
privileges of intimate association with Grant and his 
staff? Is it likely that Grant would preserve that letter 
for the information of future generations? Is it prob- 
able that Rawlins made a copy of that which he must 
have been an hour in writing, beginning at i a.m.? Is 
it possible that he would permit any one else to copy it? 

Let us finish this topic here and now. Whatever 
may have been Rawlins's anxiety as to Grant's alleged 
weakness in the West, he seems to have recovered in 
great measure before the march to the James. Porter 
frankly refers in his Memoirs to the fact that the Gen- 

306 



OBSTACLES AND DELAYS 

eral would take a modest glass with the rest. It is ref- 
utation of the theory that Grant could drink nothing 
without showing ill efTects, though it is certain that a 
little would affect him more than it did many another. 

A comical incident grew out of this soldier custom 
prevalent in all armies since the crusades, and tabooed 
by only an occasional ascetic in the days of which we 
write. Generals there were, like Wilson and Upton — 
splendid soldiers, too, and manful men — who would not 
touch liquor themselves or tolerate it about them. But 
at nine out of ten headquarters — corps, division, brigade 
or regimental — no such abstinence prevailed, and there 
came a time when even the chief quartermaster of the 
armies of the United States found his supply running 
short. It happened to be one of the times in which 
Stanton had his wary eye on Grant's headquarters, 
firmly convinced that officers there were wiring con- 
fidential information to influence the gold market and 
were speculating on the strength of it. By his order 
all telegraphic despatches were rigidly scrutinized ; and 
if any could be found which in the faintest degree de- 
parted from the strictly official and essential, they were 
to be at once brought to him. One day, in the long and 
dreary winter that followed the unsuccessful assaults 
about Petersburg, a despatch from an officer of Grant's 
staff to an old chum and comrade in Oregon days, then 
stationed in New York, was laid before Mr. Stanton, 
and the Secretary read, became suddenly charged with 
electric impulse, and, barely able to control himself, 
sent for an officer who intimately knew both the cor- 
respondents and who had scouted the idea of any covert 
or underhand measures on part of either. " Look at 
this, sir ! " demanded Stanton. " Look at this ! Here 
is proof conclusive of what I tell you — a damnable 
cipher code that no one here has ever seen before. Now, 
what have you to say ? What can that be but a means of 
conveying forbidden information?" 

307 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

The officer took it and read ; then he, too, nearly ex- 
ploded, but not with wrath. "If your cipher sharps 
had ever served in Oregon, Mr. Secretary, this would 
be no puzzle at all. It is nothing but a message in 
Chinook, which interpreted reads, * Send me another 
keg of that same whiskey.' " 

However, there was much less drinking at the 
various headquarters than the few chroniclers would 
give one to understand, and these few, it might be 
hazarded, have referred to the matter, not so much to 
call attention to others' indulgence as to their own 
abstinence. It is noted in telling how General this or 
Senator that asked for a drink of brandy or whiskey 
on reaching " my headquarters " that the narrator takes 
occasion to say, " While I never used it myself," the 
visitor's needs were presently supplied. 

There was of necessity very much of " entertaining " 
at Grant's headquarters from the day they were estab- 
lished at City Point. All manner of men, from the 
President down, came thither from time to time — Presi- 
dent, peace commissioners, politicians, relatives of ill or 
wounded soldiers, generals and their staff officers from 
other commands, and the incessant aides-de-camp of the 
Armies of the Potomac and the James. In very many 
cases the visitors were guests of the lieutenant-general 
himself, but many, as a rule, were invited to the staff 
table and very probably, after a hard ride in stormy 
weather, to a ** nip " at the tent of some one of the 
military household. It once or twice happened during 
the protracted stay of Mrs. Grant and little Jesse that 
the General received the reports of night-riding staff 
officers at the camp fire, and adjourned with them to the 
tent of Colonel Dent or Colonel Ingalls, Colonel Parker 
or some other staff officer who happened still to be up, 
and when the chilled and wearied visitor had been re- 
freshed by a stiff drink, he could then be interrogated 
until Grant had extracted all information possible. This 

308 



OBSTACLES AND DELAYS 

probably was the foundation for the venomous story of 
his " surreptitiously obtaining whiskey " in spite of the 
efforts of Rawlins. 

The General had moved his family East. The elder 
children had been placed at school (Fred, the first born, 
with the honors and a scar or two of Vicksburg, pre- 
paring for West Point), but Mrs. Grant came to join 
her husband about as soon as his cabin was ready for her 
reception, and here, to his obvious comfort, spent many 
weeks. Her brother, Colonel Fred Dent, was now the 
only family appointee on the staff — certain earlier selec- 
tions, made in deference to her wishes, having proved 
unsuitable. Colonel Dent was an amusing talker, and 
although of no particular military strength to the staff, 
was popular among his brother officers as the source 
of most of the merriment about headquarters. 

Among the visitors, too, was Jesse Root, the father, 
who came and spent some little time. As was to be ex- 
pected in the man, he had his eyes about him, and the 
business instinct of the past was still dominant. Many 
a rebuff had come to Jesse in the course of the three 
years in which the star of the son had been at last in 
the ascendant. Filial though he was, the General had 
to set firm foot upon every scheme to profit through the 
methods or needs of Uncle Sam, and many a scheme 
had Jesse. " Business " was born in him ; the lack of it 
in the son had made him the butt of paternal sarcasm 
and public slights. Father and father-in-law both had 
said many a cutting thing of the sad- faced, stoop- 
shouldered son in those dismal years immediately fol- 
lowing his retirement from the army, but never a sign 
of resentment or symptom of retaliation came from 
Grant. There was humorous twinkle in his eyes the 
day that Jesse broached his proposition as to gathering 
in the hides of the many beef cattle butchered for the 
use of the great force in front of Petersburg. The in- 
stincts of the tanner made Jesse quite importunate, but 

309 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GR.\NT 

the soldier son had to deny the thrifty father. Yet 
what a chance to ship whole cargoes of hides to the 
nearest market — hides which had cost the shipper noth- 
ing! The time had been in the not very distant past 
when, at the beck of the younger brothers, the broken 
captain was not only a party to transactions in hides, 
but conspicuous in the meanest and hardest part of the 
job — the personal handling and hauling from seller to 
cellar. 

It was during this winter, too, that Grant was com- 
pleting the purchase of the lands about the scene of 
his courtship and marriage. His pay as lieutenant- 
general, owing to the price of gold (which had risen to 
290) amounted in actual value to less than five thousand 
a year, and at war-time prices the purchasing power 
was pitiably small. Nevertheless, the moment the debts 
were paid, his first thought seems to have been to buy 
the old home for Julia Dent and the children. Every 
penny borrowed about Galena had been scrupulously 
paid before the war was a year old. Every little bill 
contracted along that dreary roadside between White 
Haven and the heart of St. Louis had been wiped off 
the slate. Some of the shop-keepers (there were still 
a few as late as the exposition of 1903) had lived to 
tell how Grant came back to them in '61 and '62, to 
say he still owed them such and such a sum, and to 
settle on the spot. They did not have to name the 
amount due. In evcr>' instance he knew it and re- 
minded them. 

It was during this winter of '64 and '65, too, that 
public-spirited citizens of Philadelphia clubbed together 
against that projected return to St. Louis at the close 
of the war, and presented Grant with a fine house and 
lot in their midst. That set others to moving in like 
manner. He had suffered much in spirit over the on- 
slaughts in the papers — the " Grant the Butcher " edi- 
torials which followed the battling in the Wilderness 

310 



OBSTACLES AND DEI^WS 

and Cold Harbor, the latter the one assault which he 
owned was an error and ever regretted. He had borne 
in patient silence the innumerable slings that were dealt 
him during the presidential campaign of the fall of '64, 
resulting in the final defeat of McQellan — the logical 
candidate of the " War is a Failure " party — and in the 
triumphant return of Abraham Lincoln. There was 
even a symptom of grim satisfaction in Grant's receipt 
that winter of the superb sword which had been put 
up to popular vote at the mammoth fair of the Sanitary 
Commission in the city of New York. For long days, as 
the " most popular general " McClellan had led in the 
voting, and his name stood at the head of the list of 
all the candidates until toward the close, when better 
counsels and possibly the rescr\'c forces and funds of 
the Union League i)revailed, and Grant won by a big 
plurality. 

All the same that winter of '64 and '65 was a trying 
one to Grant and all about him, even though Sherman 
had marched almost unopposed through the void and 
hollow spaces of a depleted South, and was striding 
northward through the Carolinas— though Thomas, 
firm, tenacious and absolutely sure in his judgment, had 
dealt the most telling blow of the war. and was threaten- 
ing the approaches to Virginia from the west — though 
Sheridan, with his now well-handled cavalr)% had 
thrashed Early out of the Shenandoah, and was pre- 
paring to swoop down upon Richmond from the north- 
west—though Wilson, with the strongest corps of horse- 
men ever assembled within our borders, was launching 
out upon the final blow at the central South, which was 
to leave nothing uncaptured from Eastport, in northern 
Mississippi, to Ir\vinsville, in southern Georgia. About 
Petersburg and Richmond, however, every blow had 
been skilfully parried and fiercely countered by Lee. 
The mine had been a miserable fiasco, the attempts on 
the Wcldon railway emphatic failures, the wintry 

3" 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

months in hut and trench had " softened " the Armies 
of the Potomac and the James, and still Grant sat there 
grim and determined, confident with the coming of 
spring and Sheridan he could turn the final trick, reach 
round the southern flank of Lee, compel him to let go 
his hold on those deadly parapets of Petersburg, then 
fall upon him in the open and, weakened by that time 
as his army must be, who could doubt the result ? And 
yet how superbly those stan-ing, tattered, jaded fellows 
fought to the very last! Superb as they had been at 
Malvern, at Antietam, at Gettysburg, in the Wilderness, 
never were they grander in their heroism than in those 
last stands at Sailors' Creek and Farmville, as they 
rallied with deathless valor and devotion about the battle 
flag of their beloved and chivalric Lee. 



CHAPTER XXXI 
THE LAST CAMPAIGN 

Most loyally and faithfully had General Meade 
sought to carry out every wish or command sent him by 
Grant. It had been the latter's method merely to in- 
dicate the movement required of the Anny of the 
Potomac, leaving to Meade the details. They were men 
utterly unlike in mode or manner, yet imbued with 
hearty respect, one for the other. Meade, who was the 
soul of courtesy and consideration when unruffled, be- 
came unbearable when aroused — stormed at every one 
about him, even at generals of rank and distinction, who, 
as a rule, could only submit in silence as became officers 
bred to the purple of the Army of the Potomac. When, 
as happened just once, the object of his temporary 
wrath was born of Irish stock and bred in the Army 
of the West, the instant result was a verbal battle the 
like of which was never fought in the East. Meade, it 
was said, could lose his temper twenty times a day, yet 
never lose a friend. Grant's temper was lost but twice 
during the entire war, yet his enemies seemed to multi- 
ply. Meade was irritable as Grant was serene, and as 
methodical as Grant was careless. Moreover, they dif- 
fered widely in their ways. Meade was of the Engineer 
school, never until the war having set squadron in the 
field. Grant had learned the game from the fighting 
end at the start. Meade had the Engineer eye for a 
strong position, and was imbued with the defensive 
method of holding it. " What shall I do if the enemy 
pushes me here? " said he to Grant, pointing to a place 
on the map where his line seemed weak and where sup- 
ports might not readily reach him. " Push him there," 
said Grant, pointing to a spot a mile away. Meade had 
thought only of the stop; Grant thought instantly of the 

313 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GR.\NT 

" counter." Aleade, most loyal and subordinate him- 
self, looked for loyalty and subordination as instant and 
as complete as his own. Hancock and ScdgAvick were 
examples of the admirable as subordinate commanders. 
Warren, with all his dash and bravery when once en- 
gaged, was cursed with the propensity to carp, cavil 
and criticise. It led almost to his relief from com- 
mand before ever they crossed the James. It was the 
underlying cause of his dramatic and most undeserved 
undoing at the verj^ climax of the last campaign. 

But Sedgwick and Hancock both were lost to Meade 
as the spring of '65 came on. Sedgwick had been shot 
dead that fateful day in front of Spottsylvania. Han- 
cock, disabled by wounds, had availed himself of leave 
of absence and had been set to organizing a new com- 
mand. Wright, a fighting Engineer, had succeeded be- 
loved " Uncle John " in command of the Sixth Corps. 
Humphreys, another fighting Engineer, with a record 
behind him, iiad succeeded to the command of the 
Second, while Burnside's old men were now led by that 
thorough soldier, another Engineer, John G. Parke, and 
what was left of the Army of the James by E. O. C. 
Ord. 

The first expedition to Eort Fisher, conducted by 
Benjamin F. Butler, had failed in the moment when 
success seemed certain ; and as the same troops, with 
a difi^erent leader, triumphed readily where Butler had 
failed, he, too, lost his command, and joined the array 
of Grant haters, of whom there were now so many. 
It had been Grant's lot to have to displace a dozen gen- 
erals in the effort to. find competent and efficient com- 
manders, and every time such general left the field he 
and his friends flooded the press with sensational clamor 
at the expense of Grant, who heard it all, of course, and, 
true to his stoical custom, sat in silence, smoked and 
said nothing. McClernand, Rosecrans, C. S. Hamilton, 
Gordon Granger, Sigel, " Baldy " Smith and Benjamin 

314 



THE LAST CAMPAIGN 

F. Butler — even loyal, but hopelessly slow, " Old Burn " 
and certain others, all owed their relief from duty, 
primarily, of course, to faults of their own, but directly 
to the order or request of Grant. Just in the nick of 
time he was saved from supplanting Thomas on the eve 
of splendid victory. It is sadly to be regretted that he 
himself could not have been at the far front that April 
Fools' Day at Five Forks, when Sheridan's brilliant 
tactical fight and spectacular overthrow of Pickett's 
famed division (what was left of it) was marred by 
the sacrifice of that brave and brainy leader Gouvemeur 
Warren — the man whom Grant himself at one time 
would have placed in command of the Army of the 
Potomac had anything happened to Meade. 

But Sheridan was the man of the hour and deserv- 
edly so. He had rejoined in the full flush of his 
triumphs in the Shenandoah and up the James. He 
had brought back his seasoned cavalry almost in the 
pink of condition — fit, so far as the men were concerned, 
for anything. He had launched out around Lee's 
southern wing, reaching for the Southside Railway and 
the rear of that impregnable line. He and his grim 
superior had fully decided that the time had now 
come to " end it all right here." The South, as Butler 
wrote, had " robbed the cradle and the grave " to put 
their last reserves into the fighting lines, for gray-haired 
men and laughing boys were shouldering the worn 
Enfields in the battered ranks. If Sheridan could reach 
the roads to the west of Petersburg, there could be no 
help for it, Lee must let go. Then what could be hoped 
for Richmond? 

Yet, even at the last, it seems as though the gods 
had planned to balk the march of the Union. The rains 
fell in torrents and flooded the flat country to the south 
and west. The troopers had ridden away, defiant of 
wind or weather, had rounded the far flank and stirred 
up a hornets' nest of Southern Horse, fighting like fiends 

315 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

about Dinwiddle. The infantry and the gunners of the 
army had been summoned from their snug winter 
quarters, and now, soaked with rain and soft with 
their long hibernation, sulked along the dripping wood 
paths, even their generals moody, silent and depressed. 
Wright and the Sixth Corps, Sheridan's sturdy backers 
in the Shenandoah, were too far back now. It was 
Warren, with the Fifth, who marched nearest. They 
had all bivouacked for the night, seeking such shelter 
as ponchos and scant canvas could afford, and were 
huddled about the camp lires, dull and dispirited. Even 
Meade seemed ready to quit and put back to the winter 
lines ; even Rawlins urged it, and the loyal little gather- 
ing at Grant's headquarters, by this time moved far out 
to Dabney's saw mills southwest of town, seemed to 
take the cue from him. It was Sheridan who saved 
the scene, Sheridan who came splashing in from the 
far front, chock-full of vim, confidence and energy, ab- 
solutely sure that with infantry to back him he could 
send Fitz Lee and Pickett whirling away northward, 
and then envelop the lines of Petersburg. It was 
Warren who was told off to his aid, Warren of whom 
the word had been passed — " He may fail you. If he 
does, relieve him," for Grant, with all his appreciation 
of Warren's fighting spirit, " when once engaged," had 
more than once found serious fault with his sluggish 
methods when instant action was needed. 

And it all fell out as might have been foreseen. 
Warren, ordered to march at night, did not get fairly 
away until morning. Gravelly Run had risen again and 
could not be forded. All day long Sheridan fumed at 
Dinwiddie, waiting for Warren, and finally pushed 
ahead without him, and when at last he had marshalled 
his cavalry in front of the works at Five Forks, and 
needed only the infantry of the Fifth Corps to make 
the enveloping attack of the eastward flank, it seemed 
as though Warren could never be roused to the im- 

316 



THE LAST CAMPAIGN 

portance of the occasion. The sun was fast setting, 
Warren's men were still marching up from the rear, 
and while Sheridan was striding about fretting, fuming, 
swearing with wrath and impatience, Warren sat su- 
pinely by, apparently indifferent and, as it seemed to 
Sheridan, impassive, sluggish, even sullen. At last, 
and only just in time, the rearmost regiments reached 
their position ; at last the word was given to go in, and 
with a wild clamor of bugles and cheers the cavalry of 
Merritt, Custer and " Tommy " Devin were flung in the 
teeth of the enemy. Ayres's fine division of Warren's 
Corps was checked at the eastward angle of the works, 
and Sheridan felt himself compelled to rush in and 
personally take a hand. With his battle flag clinched 
in his gauntleted fist, spurring straightway among the 
faltering ranks, he darted hither and yon, in and about, 
cheering, cursing, driving, until the very force of his 
meteoric example seemed to carry them in and over the 
sodden parapets, even as the charging cavalry swept 
over the long line from the south. Then when he 
wanted Warren, as luck would have it, that brilliant 
soldier was having a time of his own recalling a wander- 
ing division, and though he finally swung it in and led 
it in magnificent wheel enveloping Pickett's staggering 
line, and with it charged home upon their rear, he had 
not happened to be where Sheridan's aides expected to 
find him. He was personally conducting a splendid 
fight in his own daring and decisive way ; but through 
the thick woods no sign of it had come to those about 
the commanding general, and the ill-considered order 
was issued in the very moment of triumph — the order 
that sent Warren to the rear a heartbroken man. 

Sore in spirit over the loss of their admired leader 
and the death of gallant Fred Winthrop, shot down at 
the head of his brigade, the Fifth Corps spent that 
April night in sleep and silence, while the troopers of 
the cavalry were exulting in their great victory. Now, 

317 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

assuredly, the Army of Lee would have to abandon the 
impregnable works; the Southside Railway was within 
Sheridan's grasp. But, farther to the west the Rich- 
mond & Danville line was still open to the enemy. 
Squeezed out of Petersburg and southern Virginia, Lee 
might swiftly make his v/ay into North Carolina, and 
there, uniting with Johnston, overwhelm Sherman, and 
then turn back on Grant. But the plans of the latter 
had already been made to block that very scheme. Lee 
was never to be allowed to reach Johnston or support 
of any kind. Early on the morning of the 2nd Sheridan 
had struck out and reached the Appomattox, west of the 
encircled city. Wright, Humphreys, Parke and Ord had 
swept over the outer intrenchments and completed the 
semicircle about the doomed city. Vengefully and fiercely 
Lee struck at his assailants but could not shake them 
off, and while Grant was sending encouraging tidings 
to President Lincoln, eagerly awaiting news at City 
Point, Lee's messenger to President Davis, coming in 
the midst of Sunday moming service, bore him the long- 
dreaded tale of disaster. For the last time the fated 
chieftain of the Confederacy bowed his head in that 
sanctuary and passed out into the April sunshine, leav- 
ing a stricken congregation to hear the sorrowful words 
of their loved old rector that there would be no further 
service that day. They could only hie them homeward 
and face the catastrophe Davis and his associates had 
brought upon a brave and devoted people. 

That night the men of Lee slipped away across the 
Appomattox and struck out westward, safe for the 
moment from attack. That night the officials of the 
Confederate government were in full flight for the 
southwest, leaving Richmond to the mercies of its mob. 
Early on the moming of the 3rd the men of Meade had 
burst into the outskirts of Petersburg, Grant riding in 
their midst, while farther to the north the men of the 
old Army of the James poured into the smoking streets 

318 



THE LAST CAMPAIGN 

of the capital, and set to work to extinguish the flames. 
In one immense herd, at the southern end of the bridges 
at Petersburg, were massed the men of Lee's rear guard, 
squeezing across as fast as possible, yet presenting a 
broad target for the guns of the field artillery, such as 
never before had been afforded, and Grant, " the 
Butcher," gazing from afar on the helpless throng, their 
outward battalions still bravely, defiantly facing the 
swift advance of the blue skirmishers, stayed the order 
which would have brought the batteries lashing from 
the distant rear, to deluge with shell and shrapnel those 
thinned and devoted brigades. " I could not bear to 
kill," he said, " when it seemed so certain that in a day 
or two we could easily capture." 

Then came the chase; Meade, with the infantry 
following close at the heels ; Sheridan, with the cavalry, 
reaching even farther out to the left front, yet at every 
possible opportunity darting in and dealing savage blows 
at the sore and bleeding flank. Gallantly, stubbornly, 
in spite of hunger, desertion, battle losses, lack of sleep 
and rest, those heroic fellows in ragged gray faced and 
fought to the very last. With rations in abundance 
awaiting them at Appomattox station, they set forth 
eagerly on the dawn of the ninth day, confident that 
by noon they would be feasting and resting about their 
ladened trains, and lo ! the onward way was barred by 
long extended lines of horsemen in faded blue, and 
when the bugles sang " Forward," and the cheery word 
was passed, " It's only cavalry ; nothing else could yet 
have got here," and sturdily the gray ranks swept on- 
ward to brush aside the insolent, challenging troopers, 
then, right and left, the nimble riders drew aside, and 
lo, again there uprose solid, serried ranks of sturdy in- 
fantry, the hard-marching linesmen of the Army of the 
Potomac, and at last, at last, after four long years of 
almost incomparable battling, the Army of Northern 
Virginia — the " finest infantry in the world," as foreign 

319 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

commentators would have it — the flower of the South- 
em forces, as all admit, though by this time only the 
ghost of its once magnificent self — was beaten at its own 
brilliant game and blocked and brought to bay. 

Another beautiful and outwardly peaceful Sunday 
morning was this on which the white flag suddenly shot 
up above the halted lines of Lee, Forty-eight hours 
earlier Grant had sought to stop further bloodshed 
and besought Lee to surrender, but there was still hope 
in the Southern ranks that they could reach the Danville 
railway and leave even Sheridan behind. That hope 
now was dead. Not only Sheridan but Ord was here in 
sufficient force to bar, while Meade's divisions were 
hammering at the rear and closing in on the southward 
flank. Moreover, nothing but parched corn had they 
now left to eat, and little enough of that. The remnant 
of the once proud and indomitable army had been worn 
down by battle, by suffering and star%'ation until barely 
the shadow was left. Everything was gone but honor. 
And so, toward noon that day they came again together, 
those two leaders of men whom we last saw meet at the 
wagon train on the eastern shore of Lake Chalco — Lee 
now, in spite of his army's straits, clad in immaculate 
uniform, brand new and brilliant to the last detail, with 
his costly sword gleaming at his side, erect, dignified, 
as he stood awaiting the coming of his conqueror at the 
little homestead of the Virginia McLeans. One stafY 
ofBcer only stood in attendance, the spectacled Colonel 
Marshall ; and presently " up from the South," riding 
hard after riding long, and risen from a night of sick 
headache that left him pale and haggard, stoop-shoul- 
dered by habit, shabby in raiment by force of circum- 
stances, and looking as little like a victorious general as 
Lee looked like the beaten man, came Grant, the 
conqueror. 

Dressed like a private soldier, in loose blue sack, with 
baggy trousers and bespattered boots, his hair and beard 

320 




' ^^HiiiiiHlniil! 



rrr^ 



I old photofrapll in the collection of F. H Meserve 

THE McLEAN HOMESTEAD. APPOMATTOX 




THE LAST CAMPAIGN 

unkempt, his hand ungloved, the general-in-chief of the 
armies of the United States swung out of saddle, climbed 
the wooden steps, entered the little parlor, and there 
the renowned leaders clasped hands a moment, called 
each other formally by title and by name, and with 
Rawlins and presently Porter, Babcock and Parker, of 
the staff, joined later by Dent and Badeau, and later 
still by Generals Ord, Sheridan and others, within, while 
swarms of officers of all ranks gathered on the lawn 
without, the two great commanders began their memor- 
able conference. Grant was for indulging in reminis- 
cence of the Mexican war, surprised to find that Lee 
coulcl well recall him, and twice had Lee to bring him 
back to the more important business in hand — the terms 
of that historic surrender. 

Then at the beck of the shabbiest looking, yet the 
greatest, soklicr of the gathering. Colonel Parker swung 
a small table into the centre of the room, laid his writing 
pad upon it, and Grant swiftly penned the simple terms 
familiar to almost every school boy in the land, provid- 
ing f(jr the immediate disarming and disbantlment of 
the Southern force — officers and men to pledge them- 
selves not again to take arms unless properly exchanged, 
officers and men to take home with them such horses 
as they had, ofTicers (a glance at the shining sword of 
Lee suggested this) to retain their prized side arms — 
the necessary rolls to be made out at once. Lee's fine, 
grave features softened a little as he read — so gentle, so 
magnanimous were the terms. " My men are nearly 
starving," he began, when Grant stopped him with 
prompt question as to the number in need, and the in- 
stant order for a full supply of rations. 

And then they parted, Lee passing down the steps 
and out at the open gate to where gray " Traveler " 
stood awaiting him, every Union soldier facing his late 
antagonist at the salute, and then, when he had ridden 
beyond earshot, the jubilee began — Custer, seizing the 
21 321 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

table on which the chiefs had signed and bearing it 
forth on his curly head ; bearded elders, with glistening 
eyes, battering each other's backs ; slender young staff 
aides flying into wild g>'mnastics about the lawn, others 
spurring off to bear the wondrous tidings, and start the 
guns to thundering their rejoicing — a symptom stopped 
on the instant by Grant's quick order. There should be 
no " crowing " in his command over a foeman so daunt- 
less, so daring, and even, after all was said, so dear; 
for were they not brothers? He checked the shouts 
with which the men would now have eagerly greeted 
him, as presently he rode back to wire the news to 
Washington. Never had there been a war of more 
deadly, desperate fighting; never had there been a four 
years' grapple to compare in valor and determination 
with that fought out on the sacred soil of \'irginia ; 
never in all the history of war was conqueror so 
unconscious. Once again, on the morrow, he stopped 
to chat for half an hour on his homeward way with the 
gray-haired idol of the South, his conquered foe, and 
then set forth to Washington to provide for the speedy 
muster out of the vast army of volunteers, and to lay 
before the President and Secretary of War the story 
of his soldier stewardship — the most acclaimed and ap- 
plauded man of all the nation, the soldier who, having 
endured to the end, at last had worn out the sword of 
Lee. 



CHAPTER XXXII 
PEACE AND PERPLEXITIES 

Grant's own Memoirs close with Appomattox. 
Over the troublous days of reconstruction, of presiden- 
tial impeachment, of political intrigue, of his own 
administrations, of all, in fact, that followed the great 
surrender, he draws the veil of silence. The last year 
of the war had been a severe strain upon the patience 
and patriotism of the North. It had been quite as severe 
a strain upon the general-in-chief. Just as the cynics 
of the Army of the Potomac had prophesied — the man 
who had whipped every adversary in the West had 
for the time been stopped by that great, gray captain, 
vv^ho, in succession, had defeated every chieftain, no 
matter with what preponderance in arms and men, the 
North had sent against him. From the Rapidan to the 
James Grant had slowly forced or flanked the amiy of 
Lee. From early May to July — " fighting it out on 
this line if it took all summer " — and full half his men — 
the inflexible Westerner had pressed at every point the 
flexible Virginian, and still, as autumn wore on, that 
skilled fencer stood dauntlessly on guard between him 
and the gates of the Southern capital. Even the stout 
and steadfast heart of Grant seemed for a time almost 
to fail him. Back at Washington the President and 
the War Secretary were silently filling his every requi- 
sition for means and men, but behind the President and 
his despotic minister the murmurings of the people and 
the menace of the press had begun to wear upon the 
iron nerve of the soldier in chief command. 

It was characteristic of him that as soon as safety 
would permit, he should send for Mrs. Grant and some 
at least of the children, and it is remembered that dur- 

323 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

ing the autumn, when he was sought by a staff officer, 
the commander of the myriad forces of the Union was 
found rolHng upon the floor of the little cabin in mirth- 
ful grapple with Jesse, the younger, and that on another 
occasion when " Cincinnati," caparisoned for ceremony, 
was becoming impatient in front of the General's field 
residence, the General himself was found at the back 
of it, himself bestridden by his lusty little son and heir, 
playing horse for that youngster's benefit. It is remem- 
bered by those who surrounded them that during the 
days of Mrs. Grant's sojourn at City Foint the General 
spent long hours at her side. To his staff he would not 
talk of his troubles. If any one knew them it was his 
wife. 

The long strain in a measure accounts for his im- 
patience with Thomas, whose perfectly justifiable delay 
in attacking Hood at Nashville seemed inexplicable at 
City Point. The insistence of the press that Grant was, 
" losing ground " in the eyes of the administration and 
the hearts of the people during that long " hold up " in 
front of Petersburg was another thing that told upon 
him. He had been North on a visit and found every- 
where a sense of nervousness and apprehension over 
Sherman's dive into the bowels of the Confederacy. He 
believed, and by this time Sherman knew, the Con- 
federacy was but an empty shell, with every available 
man on the surface and no one left at the core. He 
regarded Sherman as the most brilliant and gifted 
soldier of his day, and so proclaimed him whithersoever 
he went, saying much on that score at least and doing 
everything to restore confidence, all to the end that when 
Sherman wired from Savannah his Christmas present 
to the nation, it looked for a time as though popular 
acclaim and presidential perplexities might result in 
Sherman's being ordered to supplant his great superior. 
The move was actually in contemplation at Washington, 
and even that could not daunt the deathless friendship 

324 



> 

> P 

a 



►t3 3 

w • 

O 3 

> 



00 IB 




PEACE AND PERPLEXITIES 

between the two — even such temptation could not sap 
the loyalty of such a man as Shemian or stagger the 
faith of such a man as Grant. Just as in 1861, and on 
to Shiloh, the latter held that " Charley " Smith was 
best fitted to command, and he, Grant, to serve, so now 
in '64 and '65, in spite of all that had occurred, or pos- 
sibly because of it, there were days in which he more 
than half believed that Sherman might have succeeded 
where he had failed. Sherman was magnetic, meteoric, 
aggressive, brilliant, a chieftain who aroused the en- 
thusiasm of his officers and men. Grant was silent, 
simple, even stolid — arousing no enthusiasm whatsoever. 
About the best or most the men of the Army of the 
Potomac ever said of him was that " the old man never 
quit when once he took hold," or else that widely quoted 
tribute in the vernacular of the Western rank and file, 
" Ulysses doesn't scare worth a damn." 

But Ulysses would have been less than human had 
he enjoyed defeat, and Grant liked to win, whether in 
battle, cards or horse race; and here, as the last year of 
the war opened, he found himself in danger of losing 
to a subordinate the laurels of a conqueror — the stars 
of the chief command. To ninety-nine men out of a 
hundred the prospect would have been a bitter blow and 
to nearly that number the test would have been too 
much for friendship. George H. Thomas, as we have 
seen, was so great, so magnanimous, that when threat- 
ened with removal from command and orders to serve 
under one of his own subordinates, he could announce 
his instant readiness to accept the decision " without a 
murmur." And now in his turn Grant, supreme in 
command, was put to a like test, and met it instantly, 
as had Thomas, with " the spirit of old West Point." 
If there were no other lesson to be learned from that 
war, the example of loyalty, self-sacrifice and devotion 
set by Grant, Sherman and Thomas should live in his- 
tory for all time. One can hardly read Grant's letter to 

32s 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Sherman at this emergency without a gripping at the 
heart, a moistening of the eye. The bill to make Sher- 
man, too, a lieutenant-general and therefore eligible 
to command the army, had been prepared. The moment 
Sherman heard of it he wrote to his brother, long the 
senator from Ohio, to stop it instantly, and to Grant in 
his silent sufferance came Sherman's golden words, 
" I should emphatically decline any command calculated 
to bring us into rivalry." 

And then came Grant's reply. Fancy Marlborough 
writing thus to Prince Eugene, Caesar to Antony, 
Bonaparte to Desaix, Johnston to John B, Kood, Sheri- 
dan to Thomas, aye, Lee to Longstreet ! The famous 
friendship of Damon and Pythias knew no such strain 
as that which politics and politicians thrust into the lives 
of Grant and Shennan, and yet, strained to the break- 
ing point of human endurance, superbly did those two 
soldiers bear the test and triumph over every adversary 
and adversity. " // you should be put in command and 
J put subordinate," wrote Grant, " it ivould not change 
our relations in the least. I would make the same 
exertions to support you that you have ever done to 
support me, and I zvould do all in my pozver to make 
our cause zvin." 

But Sherman, as we know, blocked through Brother 
John the bill for his promotion, even as later he blocked 
the project to set him over Grant. It has pleased many 
commentators and some historians to refer to Sherman 
as erratic, but where in all histor)' can one read of finer 
constancy in friendship — of franker, stancher loyalty 
and self-abnegation? Sherman stemmed that "tide in 
the affairs of men " which unquestionably was flooding 
toward him after Savannah, then swept Grant skyward 
after Appomattox. North and South alike proclaimed 
the silent soldier from Galena as the conqueror, the un- 
disputed chief. North and South alike welcomed and 
acclaimed him. A triumphal progress — in spite of his 

326 



PEACE AND PERPLEXITIES 

shy, retiring self — was that which awaited him whither- 
soever he journeyed in the Northland. People of all 
classes thronged about his carriage or his train, stop- 
ping his way, wringing his hand until he had to carry 
that hand in bandages and the arm in a sling. Audi- 
ences in theatres sprang to their feet and shouted when 
he arrived. Players forgot their " lines " and applauded 
wildly from the stage. Congregations stood when he 
entered church, and pastors called down the blessings 
of the Almighty on the bowed head and blushing face. 
Papers that had plastered him with charges and in- 
sinuations turned to fawn upon him now, with almost 
as offensive praise; but, high and low, rich and poor, 
great and humble, the people of the loyal North lavished 
upon him tokens of gratitude and admiration such as 
no American had ever before received ; and the sur- 
viving men of the late disloyal South, disarmed alike 
by his measures and his magnanimity, hung above their 
mantels the swords he had spared to them in token of 
a soldier's admiration of soldierly valor and virtue, and 
swore that if any man could win them back to the flag 
of their fathers it would be this plain soldier of the 
West — the man who having asked only their parole of 
honor at surrender, now had to stand between them and 
the vengeance which Andrew Johnson, Stanton and a 
rabid few at first so fiercely demanded. 

If ever man had reason for believing himself greatest 
of the great, as the people settled down " to bind up 
the nation's wounds," it was Ulysses Grant; but he 
gathered his military staff and his little family about 
him and devoted himself assiduously to closing up the 
affairs of the swiftly disbanding armies, and striving to 
adjust military conditions to the inevitable reduction in 
numbers and return to civil control. He had been re- 
ceived at Washington with almost adulation by every 
government official from our great President down to 
the pages of the House of Representatives. Members 

327 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

of the Cabinet, of the Supreme Court, of the Senate, 
vied with each other in effusive honors. Lincohi, sin- 
cere and swayed with an ahnost overwhelming grati- 
tude under God to Grant, was at last beginning to 
realize the fruits of his patient, prayerful labor; the 
dream of the ship under full sail had not yet returned, 
the shadow of that fell coming event had not yet been 
cast before him. Heaven had granted to him four days 
of unutterable joy as recompense for four years oif 
incomparable service. Then came the hideous crime 
that was to stun and horrify the nation. 

Meantime Stanton, who never really liked Grant 
and probably never much loved any man, for those few 
days deferred to him as he never had to any one. Then 
came the awful shock of the assassination (a fate spared 
to Grant because he had promised to go that night to 
join the children at Burlington), the sudden disappear- 
ance from the scene of the one master mind Stanton 
measurably bowed to, the emergence from the obscurity 
of a hotel bedroom to the White House of the in- 
temperate and ill-balanced politician destined for the 
time to sit as president, and then Stanton's prompt essay 
to gain the upper hand. Under Lincoln, and because of 
the tremendous issues involved, Stanton for a year had 
been unable to dictate to Grant. Now, with the war 
well-nigh ended and Lincoln gone, he sought to assume 
at once the supremacy he undoubtedly believed his due. 
Almost at the outset, however, his aggressive will and 
imperious temper led him into error and defeat. 

The terms of the surrender of Johnston's army to 
Sherman, unlike those of Lee to Grant, were promptly 
disavowed by the administration, and indeed disap- 
proved by Grant himself. But where the latter would 
have quietly stopped proceedings until suitable terms 
could have been substituted, it pleased Stanton privately 
to denounce Sherman as a traitor, and to publicly and 
offensively disown and renounce Sherman's actions. 

328 



PEACE AND PERPLEXITIES 

For a moment, perhaps, public sentiment, ever excitable, 
was with the implacable Secretary, but another moment's 
reflection on Sherman's long and brilliant record of 
patriotic and soldierly service steadied the press and 
satisfied the people. Even Grant, usually so calm and 
undemonstrative, had been stirred to instant action and 
impulsive protest against Stanton's scathing rebuke of 
his favorite second. " It is infamous, it is infamous! " 
he cried. It was abominable that one so loyal, so gal- 
lant and efficient as Sherman had ever been should 
now by any man, even the War Secretary, be denounced 
as a traitor. The first symptoms of a breach between 
the new and accidental President and the general-in- 
chief of his armies occurred over this humiliation of 
Sherman. The next, and one more serious still, was 
that in which the President had sought to punish cer- 
tain prominent Confederate officers who, under the 
terms of their surrender to Grant, were permitted to 
remain undisturbed at their homes so long as they 
observed the parole. Threatened with arrest, they 
promptly appealed to Grant, and now the new executive 
had a taste of the mettle there was in his foremost 
general. 

"If those men are disturbed, Mr. President," were 
the words attributed to Grant — and there is no question 
that whatever the words the purport was a fact — " I 
tender at once my resignation and submit the issue to 
the people," and Andrew Johnson had sense enough 
to know that as between himself and Ulysses Grant the 
people would promptly and crushingly decide for the 
latter. 

Early, therefore, as the summer of '65, differences 
had sprung up between the General-in-chief and the two 
men whom the law and the constitution made his 
superiors, yet the two had to stand in assumed gratifica- 
tion and complacency whenever they happened in pub- 
lic to appear with Grant, and to listen to the shouts of 

329 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

the multitude for the General, and to look In vain, in 
that presence, for any greeting for themselves. The 
day of the grand review, when the Army of the Potomac 
marched up the avenue with Meade at its gallant head, 
the throngs in front of the White House went wild 
when Grant stepped to his place on the platform, and 
hailed with only perfunctory applause the coming of 
the hat-waving, hand-shaking Chief Magistrate, fol- 
lowed by the grim, gray-bearded War Secretary. The 
next day the populace shouted itself hoarse when 
Tecumseh Sherman rode past at the head of his mag- 
nificently gaunt, sinewy, shabbily-dressed but superbly 
marching array — the men who had footed it over half 
a continent in his train. Sinewy and sullen they went 
striding by, those wir}' Westerners, with eyes straight 
to the front and hearts resentfully beating — drooping 
colors and sabres as regulations demanded as they 
passed the constitutional commander-in-chief and the 
war minister beside him who l)etween them had held 
their loved general up to popular execration. They 
were glad when it was all over — and so was Stanton, 
for publicly, and precisely as he had said, Tecumseh 
Sheniian had refused the proffered hand of the spec- 
tacled secretary and scouted his tender of amity. Long 
years later, oddly enough, when general commanding 
the army, it fell to Sherman's lot to have to rebuke the 
Commandant of Cadets for a somewhat similar refusal 
to accept the hand of his immediate superior, the Super- 
intendent, and when the Commandant had been offi- 
cially lectured upon the gravity of his misconduct and 
the evil effect his example would have upon the under- 
graduate body at West Point, and assured that nothing 
could justify a junior in refusing the hand of a senior, 
the General was suddenly reminded of his own dramatic 
demonstration of the spring of 1865. 

They all " harked back " to West Point that year 
that followed the great surrender — all save Sheridan, 

330 



PEACE AND PERPLEXITIES 

who, the very week after he had rounded up the worn 
army of Lee at Appomattox, had been despatched to 
the Rio Grande. Sometimes in groups of two or three, 
sometimes singly, the great generals of the war re- 
visited the scene of their boyish struggles and studies — 
Grant, Sherman, Thomas and a score of lesser lights. 
Even the War Secretary himself came and peered curi- 
ously about the barracks, the recitation rooms and 
offices, and went away without making, or possibly re- 
ceiving, a very favorable impression. When Sherman 
came he breezed all over the premises, chatting cheerily 
and shaking hands with everybody from the super- 
intendent down to the shoeblacks — one of whom claimed 
to have " shined him up " in 1840. When Thomas came 
— grave, courteous and dignified — the officers and the 
corps seemed to hang about him in something akin to 
reverence such as the Southerners ever showed for Lee. 
When Grant first came it was nearly dark and very 
wintry, and a great soldier was being borne to his rest, 
and the General-in-chief, muffled in huge cape-overcoat, 
and with his high black felt hat pulled well down over 
his brows, marched afoot at the tail of the procession of 
mourners, grim, impassive and out of step with the 
wailing music of the band and everybody about him. 
That night when gallant little Bowers was crushed to 
death under his eyes at Garrison's Station across the 
Hudson, though filled with shock and distress of mind, 
the iron leader of the war fell back behind the mask 
of inflexible reserve which was now becoming habitual, 
gave brief direction that the body be carried over to the 
Point, and went his instant way to the duties awaiting 
him at Washington. " The coldest blooded man I ever 
saw," said a bystander, but he saw the surface only. 

All through the Southland, too. Grant was sent by 
presidential mandate during the year that followed the 
war. Mr. Johnson desired to know at first hand the 
actual condition of the people and the sentiments of 

331 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S GRANT 

the soldiers and statesmen lately in rebellion. He knew 
that to no man in the Union service were they so drawn 
as they were to Grant. Everywhere they greeted him 
with respect, deference, often with gratitude, and at 
times with something akin to affection and appeal. 
Grant came back to Washington and made report to 
the effect that peace was possible and the people sub- 
missive, but it presently transpired that this report was 
not that which was now desired. The President had de- 
termined on reversal of his policy and the congress had 
taken alarm. A \er\' different condition of things was 
reported by the next emissary despatched, and a very 
different man was the reporter — General Carl Schurz, 
destined from this time on to oppose in many a way the 
great soldier whom, five years earlier in the streets of 
St. Louis, he had passed unnoticed — an obscure and 
almost friendless man. 



CHAPTER XXXIII 

PROBLEMS AND POLITICS 

Early as the summer of '66 the nation was bej^in- 
ning to forget the bitterness of the war days, beginning 
to tire of the sight of soldiers in uniform, beginning to 
say, even in the North, that the death of Lincoln in the 
hour of victory insured his deathless fame, beginning 
to realize in the South that the abominable deed of their 
self-constituted avenger had robbed them of their best 
and most powerful friend. Over the life and character, 
the fate and fame of Abraham Lincoln there shines a 
lustre so intense that mortal eye may not pierce the veil 
that shrouded the soul within him, but if ever God- 
like attributes descended upon man, if ever the teachings 
of the meek and lowly Son of Bethlehem were indel- 
ibly implanted in the human heart, that great heart 
beat in the rugged bosom of him who, like Him of old, 
was born in obscurity, bred in poverty, schooled in 
suffering, steeped in sympathy, love, patience and tender- 
ness for all mankind. God alone could have been the 
strength and solace of Lincoln during those four years 
of almost intolerable strain, for about him, in his official 
household, there was not one man upon whom — as was 
otherwise with Grant — he could unreservedly lean ; 
there was not one, on the contrary, whom he had not by 
patient pleading, or even cajoling, to persuade and lead. 
There was not one woman — and it was otherwise with 
Grant — ever at hand to comfort, to sympathize, to sus- 
stain. Over the pathetic sorrow of Lincoln's married 
life, foreseen, yet faced unflinchingly and borne with 
infinite patience and pity, it has seemed best to draw the 
veil. 

Even in that first summer following the disbandment 

333 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

of the armies, the people were reaHzing something of 
the greatness of him they had lost, and contrasting it 
with the littleness of him they had self-imposed — the 
majesty and magnanimity of the administration of 
Lincoln, with the machinations and " my policy " of 
Andrew Johnson. Yet the latter implicitly believed in 
himself and thought to rouse the people to a following 
such as they had denied his great predecessor. From 
having started with the threat of making "treason 
odious," he had veered squarely about to the restoration 
of every right " the States in rebellion " had less than 
six years earlier renounced and rejected. He sought 
to lead a new South to its old-time supremacy, and the 
North said No! He sought to swing by personal 
appeal the people of the thronging cities of the middle 
and western States, and while " swinging round the 
circle " to parade Grant in his train, as though Grant, 
a popular idol, approved and supported him. Grant 
could not disobey the lawful order of his chief, but be- 
fore that pitiable progress fairly began, found legitimate 
means of escaping. He who had never known what it 
was to " manoeuvre " was finding manoeuvring indis- 
pensable at Washington. He listened now in grim silence 
to the inside history of that triumphal progress, so 
fatuously projected and so flat a failure, and read, with 
thankfulness for his escape, of how the head of the 
nation rode through curious crowds in the city streets, 
vainly bowing right and left to unresponsive throngs 
that withheld their cheers until Custer's yellow curls 
and starred shoulder-straps caught their eye from the 
fourth or fifth carriage. Never did President of these 
United States present a more melancholy spectacle than 
when Andrew Johnson uncovered to the salute of some 
of Grant's old regiment, once more quartered along the 
Canadian frontier and detailed for escort duty that day 
in Buffalo. Never was there sadder contrast between 
past and present eminence than when on the platform 

334 



PROBLEMS AND POLITICS 

in Niagara Square, Millard Fillmore, white-haired 
erect and dignified, made the address of welcome to the 
man who, like himself, had stepped from the vice- 
presidency into the chair of the chief magistrate. 

The acute stage of the difference between Johnson 
and Grant had not yet come. Congress, rejoicing in 
the triumphant closing of the war, had revived the grade 
of general, rewarded Grant with four stars and a sub- 
stantial salary, and lavished brevets and honors upon 
all those who had served at the front and many who 
had not, all to the end that more than half the senior 
officers of the regular service were now wearing the 
uniform, though only a dozen were drawing the pay, of 
major or brigadier generals. Almost every field officer 
wore the yellow sash instead of the red. Full many a 
captain marshalled a little squad of men, no one of 
whom presumed to address him except as " the general." 
It was Fred Grant's first summer at West Point, and 
once or twice his illustrious father dropped in upon his 
old school and found assembled there almost as many 
generals as there were junior officers. The newly 
authorized regiments had not yet been organized. The 
army was full of men recently commanding corps, 
divisions and brigades, many of whom had to go back 
to company duty, some few of them even to '* fall in " as 
file closers. The War Department was making it as 
easy as possible for them. Numerous courts, boards 
and commissions were in session, giving temporary em- 
ployment on their volunteer rank to regulars who little 
relished the prospect of garrison duty. Andrew Johnson 
had signed the commission of Ulysses Grant as general, 
and that of Tecumseh Sherman as lieutenant-general. 
He could have done no less. Andrew Johnson had 
designated the eldest son of the foremost fighter of the 
nation a cadet " at large," and young Fred was pitched 
forthwith, neck and crop, into the militant melting pot, 
where even paternal power could help him little with the 

335 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

officers, and not at all with the cadets. If anything, 
the troubles of the son of a Somebody were double 
those of the obscure and unknown — all the more had he 
to be taken down before he could enter on the plane 
of absolute equality demanded by that fiercely demo- 
cratic autocracy — the P)attalion of Cadets. Grant the 
general, who more deeply, tenderly and passionately 
than most men loved his wife and children, left Grant 
the son to the tender mercies of a lot of young fellows, 
many of whom, like gallant Griffith, Schenck, Hoxie, 
Sears, Davis and Morton, had fought valiantly under 
him in the Army of the West, were practically his ap- 
pointees, and yet could no more depart from the stem 
traditions of the corps than could their instructors 
diverge from the standards of the Academy. That 
Fred's later career as a cadet was " eased up " in a 
measure was something the General never learned until 
long after. Possibly, as was the case when Mr. Lincoln 
would have welcomed the escape of Jefferson Davis if 
it could be accomplished " unbeknownst to him," the 
General, remembering his own failures in French, would 
have welcomed any legitimately-afforded lift his son 
might be so lucky as to receive, but Grant would never 
suggest or second it. The Academy passed that sum- 
mer from the control of the Engineers, as has previously 
been recorded, to that of the line, and late in August, 
Halleck's right bower and chicf-of-staff, the very Cap- 
tain Cullum who had so heartily written his congratula- 
tions to Grant after Donelson, subordinately and silently 
turned over the control to the Captain Pitcher (both now 
uniformed as brigadiers), who, in May, '6i, had mus- 
tered into service the Twenty-first Illinois, with Sam 
Grant at their head. There were sad and sore hearts 
among Grant's old friends and professors that day. 
There was, on the other hand, exuberant rejoicing 
among some of his gallant comrades of ^^''orth's old 
division — the men of Molino and Monterey. It was the 

336 



PROBLEMS AND POLITICS 

work of Congress, not of Grant, but he fell in with it, 
and there followed a brief term of years in which the 
tone and the discipline of the Academy suffered in con- 
sequence. 

The death and burial of Winfield Scott, Grant's com- ■ 
mander at the gates of Mexico and his illustrious pred- 
ecessor in the generalship, occurred during the first 
week in June. Possibly it was this event which called 
him thither, but a confidential wire from Washington 
summoned him back within another day. The Presi- 
dent had determined that, as Grant would not order the 
army to interfere in certain civil matters, he must have 
at its head some soldier more pliant and sympathetic. 
It was quite in his power to give orders direct to the 
army, but he was shrewd enough to see that a storm 
of disapprobation would be sure to follow, and he pre- 
ferred that this should break upon Grant, not himself, 
for Mr. Johnson was planning for a second term, and 
General Grant, while shutting his eyes and ears to all 
suggestion, was inevitably looming up as the choice of 
the people. Johnson sought to make Grant the catspaw 
— to persuade him to order that which he himself had 
the sagacity to withhold, and then to place the odium 
upon the shoulders of Grant. The scheme failed. 
Grant would obey orders, but no suggestions. Finding 
it impossible to use him in this way, Johnson bethought 
himself of another. Grant had ever felt that the govern- 
ment owed reparation to Mexico for the wrongful war 
of '46. Mexico was now striving to repel another ag- 
gression, that of the Emperor of the French in his 
effort to seat Maximilian upon a Mexican throne. Mr. 
Johnson planned to send Grant as a diplomatic agent 
into Mexico, and to seat Sherman in his stead at Wash- 
ington. 

But again he failed. Grant flatly refused the " mis- 
sion." He would obey any legitimate order as a soldier, 
he said, but this was diplomacy and beyond his province. 
22 337 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

It further failed because wary Sherman as flatly re- 
fused to be party to any move toward ousting Grant. 
He came to Washington, as directed, but went at once 
to Grant; lived under his roof; stood shoulder to 
shoulder with him against the project. Refusing to 
supplant his general in command, he most adroitly sug- 
gested entire willingness to go in his stead to Mexico, 
and the President was caught in his own trap. Sherman 
went, and Grant remained to hold the fort. 

The deplorable and memorable breach between the 
President and his War Secretary — bequeathed to him 
from Mr. Lincoln's administration — was the next serious 
episode involving Grant. Firmly and flatly Mr. Stan- 
ton, with Congress and the North behind him, had bat- 
tled against the presidential project of immediate 
universal restoration of the South to full power. John- 
son therefore sought to rid himself of Stanton. 
Congress saw to it that Stanton stayed. The tenure 
of office act, prepared and passed for this very emer- 
gency, balked the President, who. failing to induce the 
secretary to resign, would gladly have dismissed him. 
When Congress adjourned, however, after its stormy 
session of that summer of '67, Stanton was promptly 
suspended and Grant designated ad interim to serve in 
his stead. This was military duty and could not be 
evaded. In taking over the temporary duties Grant 
retained command of the army, keeping the offices 
entirely separate, spending a portion of each day in 
that of the secretary and a portion in that of the gen- 
eral. He also, at the outset, wrote to assure the Sec- 
retary, with whom he had been acting as much in 
accord as any man could with Stanton, of his full 
" appreciation of the zeal, patriotism, firmness and 
ability " with which Stanton had discharged the duties 
of Secretary of War, and Mr. Stanton, who well knew 
that Grant could not refuse to act as ordered, neverthe- 
less seemed to think that he should have refused, in his 

338 



PROBLEMS AND POLITICS 

reply to Grant rather implied that Grant was in accord 
with the President, which was by no means the case. 

In accepting the duty imposed upon him, Grant be- 
haved toward the Secretary with far more tact, courtesy 
and consideration than the Secretary had ever behaved 
toward him. As has been said, the moment Grant got 
back to Washington after the surrender of Lee, Stanton 
began giving him orders and instructions which as Sec- 
retary of War he had power to, but in which the Gen- 
eral should have been consulted. Stanton had an 
exasperating way of sending a messenger for Grant, 
whose office as general of the army was across the way 
from the old W^ar Department, thereby compelling him 
to drop his own work, don his coat and overshoes (this 
was before the days of Shepherd and crossable streets), 
plod over, climb stairs, and silently submit to criticism 
of acts or recommendations — not that Stanton had rea- 
son to find fault with them, but because he had the right 
and wished Grant to feel it. And so it is well remem- 
bered that after Johnson's total failure to force the 
bellicose Secretary from the Cabinet (the Senate refus- 
ing to concur in that rf^nomination), and Grant refus- 
ing longer to occupy the secretarial chair, Stanton's very 
first act on reseating himself therein was to send the 
War Department messenger across the way with the 
curt intimation that he needed at once to see General 
Grant. 

And in refusing to remain in the office to which he 
had been ordered ad interim, Grant precipitated the rup- 
ture which ended at once and for all time his personal 
relations with Andrew Johnson and no less than three 
of his cabinet — notably Secretaries Seward and Welles. 
The President claimed that Grant had promised to hold 
that undesired office " until a successor could be ap- 
pointed." Grant knew that Stanton, by the decision of 
the Senate on the 13th of January, had become, as it 
were, his own successor, and reminded the President 

339 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

that on Saturday the nth he had assured him that " on 
no account " could he consent to hold the office " after 
the Senate should act." All that Saturday the President 
argued, urged and temporized, but Grant was firm in 
his stand. They parted with the President saying he 
would see Grant again, and Monday brought his man- 
date to the General to attend a cabinet meeting. Grant 
had already locked the office, handed over the key to 
the adjutant-general and gone to his own desk — that of 
the General-in-chief at headquarters of the army — when 
the message came. Obediently he repaired to the council 
chamber in the \\'hite House, but the instant the Presi- 
dent addressed him as "Mr. Secretary" Grant pro- 
tested. Then came the direct issue of veracity, and 
Grant, who never lied iti his life, stood accused of a 
breach of faith by the highest, if not the best, authority 
in the land, 

F'rom that time forth Ulysses Grant never spoke to 
Andrew Johnson, nor to the Secretaries who rather 
ruefully and reluctantly, perhaps, supported the Presi- 
dent in his contention; and Mrs. Grant, making, as she 
ever did, the General's cause her own, struck from her 
visiting list the names of four distinguished households. 

And that breach was even more momentous than at 
first it might have seemed. It brought Grant into direct 
personal and political antagonism with the President ; 
it made him the leader of the opposition — the candidate 
of the Republican party for President of the United 
States. 




From Ihe collection of I- . H. Meservc 

JULIA DENT GRANT IN 1866 



CHAPTER XXXIV 
ON TO THE WHITE HOUSE 

Sixty-seven was a sorrowful year for the soldier 
Grant. Problems in his own profession he had solved 
with ease. Problems political, with their infinite variety 
of evasions, shifts and subterfiig-es, he never mastered. 
He had traversed the South in '66 and found it silent, 
subordinate, grieving over the fate of Lincoln, dreading 
the effect upon its fortunes and its future. Within 
another year, thanks to Johnson's utter and astonishing 
change of policy, he found it suddenly defiant, truculent, 
with a certain old-time swaggering class surging again 
to the top. He had seen his sturdiest generals, originally 
placed in charge of the military districts, swept aside by 
the President. He had found himself toward its close 
braved and set at naught by one at least of the presi- 
dential selections with whom hitherto he had lived in 
soldierly accord, for whom he had cherished profound 
admiration, and upon whom he had bestowed praise and 
favors second only to those accorded such as Sherman 
and Sheridan. How well the men of the Potomac recall 
that dread day in the Wilderness when Lee's veterans 
burst the lines of Warren and fell in savage force upon 
Hancock ! Back came aides and stragglers to where 
Grant sat placidly whittling by the roadside. " Hancock 
is routed," " Hancock is being driven," was their ex- 
cited announcement, and " I don't believe a word of it," 
was Grant's stolid reply. 

" Hancock's a glorious soldier," said he, a moment 
later, to the throng about him, and so he hailed him and 
believed him throughout the war. For this trait he 
recommended and, not without opposition, secured for 
Hancock a brigadier-generalship in the regular army. 

341 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Foremost on that furious way to the James he set him, 
and foremost of his corps commanders Grant held him 
even when, " with the presidential bee in his bonnet " 
and reopening- wounds to warrant his withdrawal, Han- 
cock left the fighting front at Petersburg to recuperate 
and recruit north of the Potomac. 

And now the most turbulent of the military dis- 
tricts was the Fifth. The hotbed of the reaction against 
the North was the city of New Orleans, and here Sheri- 
dan had been in command after his return from the 
Rio Grande. Here the unterrified populace fell upon 
the unprepared delegates to a meeting at the old 
Mechanics' Institute, shooting down numbers of them in 
cold blood. Hereupon Sheridan had removed, as the 
laws provided, certain civil officials who blocked the 
will of Congress. Here, in spite of the earnest appeals 
of Grant, Sheridan, his beloved cavalry leader, was un- 
horsed by order of the President (providentially per- 
haps, for yellow fever was raging in New Orleans at 
the time and a score of Northern officers died). Then 
came the frost to kill the scourge and Hancock to sup- 
plant Sheridan, and then — another stor>'. Plancock set 
himself squarely in support of the President and in op- 
position to Congress and his immediate superior, the 
General-in-chief. Hancock won eventually the nomina- 
tion of the party he sought to serve, but stopped short 
of the presidency. Grant, steadfast in his adherence to 
the will of Congress and the union-loving North, went 
on to eight successive years at the White House, and to 
the foremost place in the great heart of the nation. 

And yet for much more than a year he would listen 
to no suggestion as to the presidency. Even his closest 
friends of the old stafif, his pastor, Dr. Newman, his 
fidus Achates, Rawlins, ventured no more than cnce to 
broach the subject. First to make the essay were the 
Democrats, led by Dick Taylor, of Louisiana, and cer- 
tain members of the House, for Grant had been a 

342 



ON TO THE WHITE HOUSE 

Douglas man, and had never announced himself as any- 
thing else. Rawlins, however, was vehemently, fiercely 
bent on forcing his chief to assert himself. Rawlins it 
was who drafted the letter which broke the final link- 
between the President and the commanding general. 
Rawlins it was who virtually dictated the step that 
made Grant the unopposed, unquestioned standard- 
bearer of the Republican party. The presidential policy 
toward the " States recently in rebellion " had so alarmed 
and aroused the North that the demand became incessant 
and insistent. A man was needed at the head of afifairs 
who could and would represent the majority of the 
people; and who so deserved their sufi^rages? — who so 
apt to stand for their views and principles in peace as 
he who so stoutly had upheld their cause in war? Here 
was history repeating itself. The political leaders of 
the Democratic party had precipitated the unjust war 
with Mexico in the hope of perpetuating their own 
power, and the people had turned them down and ex- 
alted the soldier Zachary Taylor. And now again, 
statesmen by the score and politicians without number 
were virtually bidden to stand aside and make way for 
the man who had no more sought to be president than 
originally he had sought to be a soldier — Ulysses Grant. 
It was a bitter pill for the schemers who had sought 
some way to trap or trip the silent man. Politicians and 
the press resorted to many a device to draw him out and 
then assail him, but he would not be drawn. At the 
first mention of the presidency he would look his ques- 
tioner squarely in the face, his lips would set in a 
rigid line, and the interview would end. Not to a soul 
about him, not even to the wife he loved so devotedly, 
would he admit that the presidency would be acceptable, 
until the year 1868 was fairly ushered in. The National 
Convention had been summoned to meet at Cincinnati, 
by which time the utterly unsettled condition of affairs 
in the South, the almost universal demand of the press 

343 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

and people of the North had begun to convince him that 
he had a still higher destiny and duty. Now, he began 
to listen to urgings, public and private. There were 
pleadings without and within the domestic circle, and 
when Julia Dent's ambition for her husband overcame 
her reluctance to annoy him, she could and did influence 
him as could none other. 

And how womanly, how natural, it was that she 
should wish to see him seated highest among the seats 
of the mighty — she who had chosen him against the 
wishes of her slave-holding father, she who had shared 
his poverty, his humiliation, and had smarted with him 
and for him under the slights and sneers, not only of 
her people but of his! Dent the elder, even as late 

as '62, had publicly referred to him as "that d d 

Federal son-in-law," and had time and again before that 
declared against him as " of no earthly account." Grant 
the elder and Grants the younger had seemed to find 
some strange satisfaction in showing the good people of 
Galena how low they held their unprotesting soldier 
kinsman. The men of the two clans, it seems, had made 
up their minds as to his being a flat failure. It was the 
women — his wife, his mother and one at least of his 
sisters — who never lost faith in him and who stood by 
him, triumphant, to the last. 

It was but natural now that Julia Dent should wish 
to see him where all men would bow to him and most 
women to her. Poor Mrs. Lincoln had taunted and 
twitted her with the ambition long before it ever dawned 
upon her, but now that there were women in the White 
House, in the homes of officials of the cabinet, and of 
certain sympathizers there in Washington whom she 
could not visit and would not recognize — now that there 
were others who sought to patronize and seemed to con- 
descend, was it strange that she herself should wish to 
sit where all must recognize her, even on our democratic 
plane, as the first lady of the land ? 

344 



ON TO THE WHITE HOUSE 

Be this as it may, the spring of '68 found the Gen- 
eral-in-chief at last committed to the project, and now, 
true to the Ulysses of old, having- put his hand to the 
plough, his face was fixed upon the goal — having given 
that hand to the work before him it was to be done with 
all his might. And so it resulted that in May, '68, on 
the banks of the beautiful river of the middle West, only 
a short ride from that picturesque birthplace, only an 
hour away from the fields where, while yet a laughing 
urchin, he first rode into prominence, only twenty- four 
miles as the crow flies from the scene of his first boyish 
battle, and from that of the first admonition as to silence 
he ever laid upon his father, the Republican convention 
in session at Cincinnati unanimously ratified that old- 
time prophecy of the wandering phrenologist, and the 
lad who had never wished to be a soldier, yet had risen 
to be the greatest in the nation, the cadet who had 
blushed at his own vision of himself standing in the 
place of Scott, yet had lived to stand even higher — the 
young captain who had won such fame and commenda- 
tion in his country's battles only to find himself de- 
famed and condemned — the struggling, sickly farmer — 
the humble applicant for county office — the shabby, sor- 
rowing, debt-burdened servitor in the village store — the 
unprotesting victim of a popular belief if not a personal 
habit, sustained through all by a woman's faith and de- 
votion, and in spite of all, dauntless and confident of 
ultimate success, had risen step by step through the 
ordeal of battle to the topmost roimd of the ladder, for 
that nomination meant an overwhelming vote and his 
election in November to the presidency of the United 
States. 

The chagrin of Mr. Johnson at this juncture was 
only exceeded by the calm (some called it the self-com- 
placency) of the president-elect. As placidly as he re- 
ceived the surrender of Buckner, of Pemberton, even 
of the magnificent Lee, Grant now accepted the highest 

345 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

honors attainable in our country. From every State and 
from almost ever}' community they came thronging 
upon him — the authorized delegations or the self-con- 
stituted delegates — to tender homage and congratulation, 
coupled, as frequently happened, with incidental sug- 
gestion as to appointments to office. Men high in the 
world of politics, men schooled in diplomacy and states- 
manship, men skilled in the arts of flattery and dis- 
simulation, men inspired by hope or curiosity came 
flocking to see him to suggest, and especially, if possible, 
to secure his promise as to public policy or personal or 
political patronage. And now there dawned upon the 
astonished vision of men hitherto sought and consulted 
a president-soon-to-be who asked no advice, who sat, 
smoked, listened, but spake not. To an extent little 
suspected until toward the very last. Grant had the 
faculty of hearing, of remembering all that was said, 
and, without giving a sign that he was so doing, of 
pondering long over everj'thing said and forming his 
own conclusions. And now the men whom Lincoln 
had been wont to send for and consult — not so much 
that he needed their advice as that it made them think so, 
and therefore won their support — found themselves no 
longer in request, and when they came and sought to 
advise, found themselves heard in unresponsive silence. 
What seemed most to sting the statesmen was the fact 
that Grant still sought and cherished the society of 
soldiers. Ever about him were the men, tried and true, 
with whom he had borne the heat and burden of many 
a day in battle, and on whom he seemed now to lean, 
whereas he was not leaning at all. 

Senators and representatives, office-holders and dele- 
gations, receiving no promise and in many cases no re- 
sponse as result of their suggestions, went away swear- 
ing he listened only to " swashbucklers " about him. 
This was one of Senator Sumner's bitterest complaints. 
As a matter of fact, he was listening to everybody and 

346 



ON TO THE WHITE HOUSE 

talking to nobody. It was not long before his soldier 
associates were becoming almost as sore-hearted as so 
many senators. Some few there were, like Ingalls and 
Horace Porter, who knew him well enough to know 
that he was carefully observ^ing, deeply thinking and 
profoundly planning. Previous to the election, as 
though anxious to avoid the allurements and entangle- 
ments at Washington — the things Sherman so dreaded 
— he had cut loose from the capital, as he had when 
he marched away from Bruinsburg and into Mississippi, 
and had betaken himself to his old home at Galena, 
where he might reflect and think. Here he had received 
the notification of his election and made that modest 
reply. Then he had to return to his desk at Washington, 
where, though importuned every living minute by seekers 
innumerable, he pursued his relentless way, giving no 
hint whatsoever of his intentions or policies, even to 
men who had been his stanchest friends — even to two 
who might almost be called his benefactors — Rawlins 
and Washburne. Washburne felt so grieved that it well- 
nigh made him ill. Rawlins felt so hurt that it actually 
made him ill, and he took his leave and went North- 
ward, cherishing a grievance against the man he had so 
devotedly served. 

Former presidents-elect had consulted party leaders 
by the score as to portfolios, policies and the all-im- 
portant inaugural address. The time was nigh when 
the announcements must be made, the names of the 
cabinet given to the press for dissection and to the 
Senate for confirmation, and not a syllable had been ex- 
tracted from this soldier sphinx at Washington. 
Badeau, his military secretary, was with him hourly, 
opened all his letters, and wrote at his dictation most of 
his replies. Badeau was as much in his confidence at 
this moment as any man on earth, and yet Badeau knew 
next to nothing. Grant well understood that he owed 
his selection to the overwhelming demand of the people 

347 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

— not to their political file leaders. It is improbable 
that men like Seward, Chase, Sunmer or Horace 
Greeley, as Badeau declares, would ever have chosen 
Grant for President. It was to the people to whom he 
was accountable and to them he would speak direct, 
and consult no intermediary. It was a course which 
robbed him of counsel and of friendships that might 
have been of priceless value. But he played the game 
as he liked to do when playing euchre, and " went it 
alone." What is most remarkable, he did not even 
confide in her whose admiration he still most ardently 
craved. She, too, was worrying over the situation, the 
silence of her husband, the clamors of the press, the 
veiled comments of " society," the constant questioning 
of their kindred. She could not induce him to talk of 
the cabinet or of the inaugural address, which seemed to 
fret her most of all. In common with the women of 
Galena she believed him incapable of making a speech, 
and urged him to consult Mr. Conkling, Mr. Logan, Mr. 
W'ashburne and other gentlemen of eloquence and re- 
nown, and he quizzically asked her was it their speech 
or his he was expected to deliver, and reminded her still 
laughingly that he had Jesse, Jr., to fall back upon — 
Jesse who was as ready as ever had been his grand- 
father to make a speech on any occasion. In her anxiety 
she broached the matter to others, and one day Grant's 
prospective brother-in-law, Mr Corbyn, entered the 
office and placed in his hands an elaborate address which 
Corbyn had concluded it his duty to write for him and 
conceived would be the very thing — an effusion which 
Grant directed Badeau to lock up and let no one see 
until after the inauguration. Never having consulted 
a soul that Badeau could hear of. Grant finally sat down 
one afternoon three weeks before the 4th of March, 
and wrote every word of the address he expected to 
deliver, then told Badeau to read it and give him the 
benefit of his criticism. No one else was to be per- 

348 



ON TO THE WHITE HOUSE 

mitted to see or hear a word of it until the day before 
its dehvery, and until the 3rd of INIarch, at least, no 
one did. 

A more amazing, exasperating, intractable president- 
elect the old-style politicians had never known, the press 
had never encountered. Two or three departures from 
his self-imposed rules he finally permitted, one for busi- 
ness and two for personal reasons. Casting about for 
a suitable Secretary of the Treasury, he had settled on 
Mr. A. T. Stewart, the great drygoods merchant of 
New York. In view of his immense business affairs 
Mr. Stewart was confidentially notified of Grant's in- 
tentions, and delightedly made all preparations to accept. 
Then there were Washburne and Rawlins, hurt and 
saddened by his silence. Washburne unquestionably 
had hoped to receive the office of Secretary of the 
Treasury, and so far from being gladdened, was ag- 
grieved when Grant summoned him to say that he was 
to be Secretary of the Interior. Rawlins, who knew that 
a man of W^ashburne's eminence would surely be in the 
cabinet, and who reasoned that there could not be two 
from Illinois, had feared there could be nothing for him- 
self. Grant loved to spring surprises on his friends and 
he began with Rawlins. The once stalwart chief-of- 
stafif came at his bidding, wondering what might be in 
store for him. He entered the inner ofiice, pallid and 
sorrowing. He came forth with sparkling eyes and 
springy step, restored temporarily, at least, to life and 
vigor, but with his lips sealed to the fact conveyed to him 
alone — that he was to be the Secretary of War. These 
three men, only, were notified of the eminence in store 
for them. To the rest of the world, even Julia Dent, 
his wife, Grant refused all information. 

Up to the last the retiring President sought to 
hamper and worry him, but Stanton had " ceased from 
troubling," having resigned in disgust after the failure of 
the impeachment proceedings. Mr. Johnson sent Rose- 

349 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

crans as minister to Mexico, knowing well that Grant 
would never do so, for in common with other generals 
who had personally failed, Rosecrans, as Badeau de- 
clared, had first joined the " War is a Failure " party, 
headed by McClellan, and later had met Mr. Johnson 
in all his measures. 

Johnson shrewdly reasoned, therefore, that the presi- 
dent-elect might expose himself to criticism by seeking 
to prevent the confirmation in the Senate. Grant never 
seemed to notice what was probably meant as a studied 
aflFront. Rosecrans went to his station ; was received 
with the honors due an accredited envoy of the United 
States, and there his powers ended. Grant and Romero, 
Mexico's greatest statesman, were bosom friends, and a 
few lines from the military secretary to Romero had 
apprised the latter that it might be advisable to await 
the wishes of the new administration before executing 
any important diplomatic business with the newly ac- 
credited minister. 

The momentous day drew nigh, and still no wln'spcr 
of Grant's prospective appointments had escaped him, 
no line as to his policies been accorded to even the 
friendly powers in the greatest of the editorial chairs. 
Even the New York Times and Tribune were in 
the dark. Even Julia Dent, anxious, indeed agitated 
at times, could extract no word from him. He abso- 
lutely refused to share her worry as to that inaugural 
address — the manner of preparation and the awful 
probabilities as to the delivery of which so constantly 
were the subject of her thoughts and the burden of her 
song. Then the great day arrived and, refusing to ride 
in the same carriage, as custom prescribed, with his 
predecessor, the silent man of the nation, calm and un- 
ruffled as in the storm of battle, stepped forward in the 
face of the immense throng at the Capitol, turning his 
back temporarily upon the circle of dignitaries seated on 
the platform — Julia Dent, quivering with mingled pride 

350 



ON TO THE WHITE HOUSE 

and dread, seated in their midst — drew from his pocket 
his carefully penned pages, glanced casually over the 
sea of faces before him, and in the midst of a silence — 
a strained interest — almost indescribable, the soldier 
who never yet had made a speech slightly lifted up his 
voice and began. And then the anxiety on the face of 
his wife gave way to bewilderment, then to amaze, for, 
in confident tone audible to every one upon the crowded 
platform the new Chief Magistrate of these United 
States delivered to the very last word his brief, sensible, 
spirited address ; then, even while receiving impulsive 
congratulations, made his way as speedily as possible 
to where, fluttering with pride and amaze commingled, 
the wife of his bosom stood the centre of a bevy of 
friends, and at the first convenient moment quietly ob- 
served, " And now, my dear, I hope you're satisfied." 



CHAPTER XXXV 
PRESIDENT AND COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF 

Of the cabinet with which President Grant started 
on his eight years' incumbency not one remained at the 
close. For this there were various reasons: As 
originally laid before the Senate and promptly, though 
not too willingly, confirmed by that august body, Mr. 
Washburne w^as named foremost as Secretary of State, 
Mr. Stewart as Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Borie as 
Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Cresswell as Postmaster- 
General, Mr. Hoar as Attorney-General, and Mr. Cox 
as Secretary of the Interior. The Sccretar)ship of 
War had been held for some months by General Scho- 
field, in succession to Stanton — one of the best appoint- 
ments President Johnson ever made. Nor was it the 
last time the government at Washington availed itself 
of the statesmanship and soldierly qualities of which 
Schofield was so remarkable a combination. It was 
General Grant's desire to retain Schoticld there for a 
few weeks until Rawlins could learn something of the 
intricacies of the office, then the latter was to enter upon 
his duties. 

Washburne, failing to get the Treasury and caring 
nothing for the portfolio of the Interior, asked that he 
be named Secretary of State — to start, at least, as 
premier, then to be sent to France. It was ungenerous 
in Washburne to ask it, and unwise in Grant to assent, 
for the Senate little relished the idea of confirming a 
merely complimentary nomination, yet did it to show its 
abundant good will toward Grant. It was unusual, but 
so was pretty much everything else about that cabinet. 
Mr. Stewart, who entered confidently upon his duties, 
was presently pointed out to be ineligible under an old 

352 



PRESIDENT AND COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF 

law prohibiting the appointment to that office of " any- 
one engaged in trade," and Mr. Stewart, to his supreme 
regret and that of Grant, was compelled to retire. The 
mortification to everj-body concerned might have been 
avoided had Grant consulted men of experience be- 
forehanfl — yet the Senate was supposed to contain men 
"f experience, and the Senate had confirmed. 

Then came Mr. Borie, of Philadelphia, who having 
been in conversation with his friend, General Grant, on 
the 3rd of March, was not a little amazed on the 5th 
to find himself placed at the head of the Navy. It was 
an undcsired appointment and, had he earlier been noti- 
fied, Mr. Borie probably would have had none of it; 
but now, rather than further embarrass the already 
embarrassed President, he decided to remain for a little 
time, and did so. Then came trouble as to Massa- 
chusetts: Mr. Hoar being the attorney-general, there 
was prompt rcmon.Mrance when Mr. Boulwcll, also of 
.Massachusetts, was named, zHce Stewart, for the Treas- 
ur)-. Iloar was later sacrificed, the Senate refusing 
to confirm him to the Supreme Court. Mr. Wilson, of 
Iowa, also had declined a secretaryship, and Mr. Sum- 
ner, who had ardently hoped and longed to be Secretary 
of State, was given nothing at all. The first statesmen 
to fall away from Grant were therefore those of the 
old commonwealth of Massachusetts. 

When Lincoln was elected he dared to designate as 
his cabinet ministers the men who were his foremost 
rivals for the leadership of the Republican party, 
notably Chase and Seward. When Grant followed he 
preferred no fellow leaders. What he thought he 
needed was a staflf. and he chose the men personally ac- 
ceptable to himself if not to the countr>'. It is safe 
to say that after his experience as President he never 
would have done it. 

It was, however, a stroke of supreme good fortune 
at this juncture, if not of genius, that prompted him 
rj 353 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

to tender the State Department to Hamilton Fish, of 
•New York. Therein he won to his cause and that of 
the nation a gentleman and a scholar, a strong and 
judicious mind. In many another way, however, the 
composition of that cabinet had bred dissension. Mr. 
Hoar never fully forgave the President for letting him 
out. Mr. Stewart never ceased to complain that he 
had been humiliated and later ignored. Mr. Borie, 
whose personal friendship never wavered, positively 
refused to serve longer than a few months, and so the 
civil administration became clouded from the start. 

And if this were not enough, there were other 
sources of grievance. Lincoln, Johnson and most of 
their immediate predecessors — even courtly Mr. Bu- 
chanan — had been easy of access to public men, but now, 
said these latter, " we can't get in without the counter- 
sign." " The White House is a military camp." " The 
President has his sentries set and his staff on duty." 
" It is difficult to get a word zmth him, it is impossible 
to get a word out o-f him." Mr. Sumner was one of 
the senators who later worked himself up into a fury 
over this " odious, insulting, degrading, aide-de- 
campish " surrounding of the presidential chair. The 
simple truth of the matter was that Grant desired to 
have at his beck and call some o-f the men upon whom 
he most relied in times of stress and danger. He had 
parted from his military staff on the 4th of March, yet 
arranged with his successor as commanding general, his 
ever devoted Sherman, that three or four of their num- 
ber should be continued nominally on Sherman's staff, 
but practically as aides to the President. Two of them, 
Horace Porter and Babcock, were ever about his desk 
as private and presidential secretaries, and Porter's 
supreme capacity for guarding his chief and his secrets 
exasperated not a few men of influence who sought to 
reach both. Babcock lacked the poise and impene- 
trability of Porter, but for a time followed the lead as 

354 



PRESIDENT AND COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF 

far as possible of his senior. Badeau had a room to 
himself, withdrawn from politics and politicians, and 
busied with Grant's military Memoirs. Comstock, the 
frigid and unbending, remained but a brief time, and 
gladly resumed duty with the Engineers. Surely a 
President should be allowed to choose his secretaries as 
he pleases, and had these men not originally been 
soldiers no offense might have been taken. As to the 
fifth in attendance, brother-in-law and former chum, 
Frederick Dent, the most capricious of congressmen 
could hardly have found fault with that simple-minded, 
afTable, approachable and utterly unmartial soldier. The 
geniality and joviality of General Dent in fact became 
proverbial, but failed to mollify. There were still others 
with whom Grant speedily surrounded himself as ob- 
noxious in senatorial eyes as were the staff. Doing 
his utmost to be courteous, attentive and patient in his 
dealings with delegations and individuals, especially 
from " the other end of the avenue " where gleamed the 
great Capitol, it was soon evident to ever}'body that the 
President preferred the society of the men whom he had 
known for years and upon whose loyalty and fidelity he 
could count unerringly. 

Sherman had come to be head of the army, vice 
Grant, become commander-in-chief. Rawlins was in the 
war office and living close at hand. Rufus Ingalls had 
been assigned to duty not far away, and, together with 
Stewart Van Vliet, of Sherman's class — Van Vliet of 
the snow-white hair, the rubicund nose, the jovial per- 
sonality, the resonant laugh — these, and other old 
cronies would often assemble in the late afternoon, for 
an old time, camp-fire " powwow " on the shaded south 
porch of the White House. Then there were two or 
three prominent and well-to-do citizens — men who drove 
the best roadsters about Washington, and Grant, who 
had abandoned riding, dearly loved to hold the reins 
over a thoroughbred trotter when, as some indignant 

355 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

committeeman would have it, he should have been 
closeted with him and giving attentive ear as to this 
collectorship or that post office. 

Elected on the Republican platform, he affronted 
certain conventionalists by the adoption of democratic 
planks. While he would not set foot in a street car, he 
would saunter at evening about the streets, sometimes 
chatting with a friend, sometimes gazing into shop 
windows, but always smoking. While former presi- 
dents had accepted no invitations to dinner or similar 
attentions, he liked to dine with his cabinet, enjoyed 
evening visits at the homes of Washington friends, and 
often with Mrs. Grant, yet sometimes without her, was 
quite accustomed when he felt in the mood for a chat, 
to take his hat, light a fresh cigar, and sally forth with- 
out so much as a word to even Crook, the faithful Fifth 
Cavalry door keeper. Indeed the Fifth Cavalry were 
kept in evidence about the White House longer than 
even other army folk thought justifiable. That sterling 
Pennsylvania soldier, " Jule " Mason, had captained the 
bodyguard of the General-in-chicf at City Point, and he 
and his famous troop had followed him to Washington, 
supplying the innumerable orderlies and messengers still 
maintained about the White House and War Depart- 
ment, and long months after Grant had become Presi- 
dent, and the rest of the regiment had been chasing 
Ku Klux or fighting Cheyennes and Sioux. Then Sher- 
man shipped the bodyguard to Wyoming and speedily 
followed their exit by prescribing his own to St. Louis. 
The atmosphere at Washington had become charged 
with elements the man of the march to the sea declared 
intolerable. 

It had been Stanton's imperious way, as we have 
said, to send for Grant when he wanted to see him, 
sometimes when it was unnecessary. It became presently 
noticeable that the President considered such methods 
beneath him. When he wished to see and talk with a Sec- 

356 



PRESIDENT AND COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF 

retary or Senator he saw no reason why he should not do 
it in the simplest way, by stepping out in search of him. 
When full of a subject and desirous of clinching his 
point, the President set about doing it just as he would 
send Sheridan off on a raid or Meade in to headlong 
assault — by going over and saying so. This trait 
scandalized Charles Sumner — one of the ablest men that 
ever sat in the Senate of the United States, and un- 
questionably the most arrogant and domineering. It 
was one of the early sorrows of Grant's administration 
that he could never win the support of Mr. Sumner, 
for whose scholarship and statesmanship he had con- 
ceived sincere regard. Feeling this admiration for 
Sumner, although he would not make him Secretary of 
State, well knowing that the secretary would promptly 
strive to be the master, he had not scrupled, when the 
San Domingo question was up for action, to step round 
to the Senator's house one evening and say that the 
President would like to speak with him a minute. As 
luck would have it, the great chairman of the senate 
committee on foreign relations was entertaining friends 
at dinner and expounding on some pet theme when in- 
terrupted by the butler's announcement. He could not 
deny himself to the chief magistrate, nor could he con- 
ceal his sense of ofifended dignity. He never forgave 
Grant for what in his simplicity the latter deemed an 
evidence of his desire to personally consult the views 
and wishes of the great leader. Grant never sought 
him again. 

Sensitive to the core, though silent as the grave, as 
to slights and indignities, Grant would not speak of a 
wrong or injustice done him. He ceased to speak to 
the dealer, as in the case of Johnson and certain of his 
secretaries, and he soon had other difficulties, not of 
his own making. Yet Sumner saw fit in his bitter 
speech to refer to him as " the great quarreler," hold- 
ing that the President had no right to quarrel with any- 

357 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

body. In spite, therefore, of the happiness it gave him 
to see Mrs, Grant's high content in her station as " first 
lady " and leader of social Washington; in spite of the 
pleasure it gave him to keep many an old friend about 
him and of making many a new, Grant was often glad 
to get away from Washington, and during the five years 
in which his first-born was struggling through the Mili- 
tary Academy, the President frequently appeared and 
temporarily took up his abode, dwelling with his wife 
and his winsome little daughter at the old hotel, and, 
except for sympathetic anxieties on account of Cadet 
Fred, enjoying himself hugely. 

Fred had little of his father's gift for mathematics, 
all of his failing in French, and more than his indiflfer- 
ence to regulations. The lad brought with him to the 
Academy the traditions and mannerisms of that famous 
fighting command, the Anny of the Tennessee. He had 
picked up the vernacular of the camp and the free-and- 
easy methods of their campaigning, and it speedily de- 
veloped that Fred was going to have a hard time get- 
ting through. Moreover, these were his callow days, 
and he had been somewhat spoiled by a fond mother 
and a doting sister. The stern old regime of the Point 
was changing. Mahan was breaking mentally, Bartlett 
and Church were visibly aging. The rigid discipline of 
the sciiolastic Engineers had given place to the more 
elastic ways of the line. In former days deficiency in 
any branch meant dissolution — the cadet dropped out 
entirely. When Fred proved totally deficient in French, 
the new administration, headed by stanch old friends 
of the President, pointed out that in spite of short- 
comings in languages and laxity in deportment, the 
Grant of '43 had later made an unparalleled record in 
soldiership ; had ten thousand times over repaid the 
people the cost of his education and keep at the Point, 
and that now the nation could well afford to take a 
chance as to the Grant of the future. Everybody really 

358 



PRESIDENT AND COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF ^ 

liked the young fellow. He was frank, cheery, good 
natured, as the father ever had been, yet by no means 
as " cadet-wise." Like his father, he appeared to best 
advantage in saddle. His figure was fine, his seat was 
firm, and he rode straight and well. The elders of the 
Academic Board who had schooled his father through, 
strove hard to carry the son, but even the scion of the 
chief magistrate had to bow to the inexorable ruling of 
the Point, and to fall back into a lower class when he 
could not keep up with his own. Finally, by the " skin 
of his teeth " and in spite of academic " skins " and 
sins innumerable, Fred managed to squirm through 
and be graduated with the class of 1871, and great was 
the rejoicing of the household of Grant and the laugh- 
ing delight of the corps. With his fellows he had put 
on no airs whatsoever, and from the start had been, if 
anything, almost too " hail fellow well met." The 
younger brother of Rawlins had been appointed, and 
dropped as hopeless within the six months; the sons 
of famous and beloved generals and admirals had en- 
tered, failed and vanished. The President must have 
felt a sensation of infinite relief when early in June, '71, 
he came to the Point to see Fred graduated, for during 
that summer he seemed at his best. 

He sat at table at the old West Point Hotel, with 
Mrs. Grant and a bevy of her friends about him ; he 
bloomed in the sunshine of her smile and the presence 
of attractive women ; he laughed delightedly over good 
stories (he never would listen to a bad one), and in 
spite of his aversion to French he saw the point and 
shouted with merriment when told that some one at an 
adjoining table, selecting ris de veau from the day's 
menu, complained that though supplied with the veal 
she was refused the rice, and that was what she most 
desired. He was tickled immensely over a story then 
current about his new war secretary, Belknap, of Iowa, 
who, in '71, was in the pride and heyday of his admln- 

359 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

istration. Belknap had just married a beautiful young 
widow, Mrs. Bowers, and was deeply enamored. To the 
War Department at this time came General Robert 
Williams, one of the most courteous, consistent and dig- 
nified soldiers of the old school then left to the army — 
its exemplar, in fact, of punctilio and deportment. Wil- 
liams, some years before, had wooed and won the lovely 
relict of the late Stephen A. Douglas, and was as de- 
voted a husband as he was debonair a soldier. Genially, 
jovially accosting him, when the new adjutant came 
to pay his respects, Belknap shouted : " Hello, Williams ! 
Glad to see you ! How is Mrs. Douglas ? " And with 
unflinching gravity and aplomb came the answer: 
" Very well, thank you, Mr. Secretar>s and how is — er 
— Mrs. Bowers?" 

In those days the West Point Hotel was managed by 
Theodore Cozzens, a genial host, while the big establish- 
ment perched on the cliff above Highland Falls, a mile 
below the Point, was presided over by his brother, 
Sylvanus. The iron-clad rules of the West Point Hotel 
prohibited the sale of wines or liquors, but Theodore 
in his private rooms in the basement kept a choice sup- 
ply for his chosen friends, and thither the President 
repaired when he wished to chat in comfort, perchance 
over a glass of wine and a cigar. Much of the time of 
the presidency he was a total abstainer, turning down 
his wine glasses at table even at diplomatic dinners, but 
always providing the best he could buy for the guests 
whom he honored with invitations. 

And this basement branch of the executive of!ice led 
to the first personal meeting of the present writer with 
his great admiration, the President. It was a breathless 
evening, warm, dark and moonless, and a bevy of 
young girls and ofScers were gathered on the north 
piazza. A bright gleam of light from the hanging lamps 
and the open hallway illumined the broad flight of steps 
leading from the piazza to the terrace below, leaving 

360 



PRESIDENT AND COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF 

everything to the right and left of the stairs in black- 
ness and gloom. Some laughing remark had led to a 
playful attack on one of the party, and in efTort to 
escape, he went bounding down the steep flight, five 
steps at a jump, and with all the impetus of the rush, 
collided forcefully with a sturdy form in sombre black, 
just rounding into view at the foot of the stairs. A 
silk hat went spinning down the lighted pathway, a burn- 
ing cigar shot into space, the burly form recoiled from 
the sudden impact, and the subaltern at fault, springing 
on after the hat, recovered it, brought it back, care- 
fully wiping it with his handkerchief and, all contrition 
and confusion, began his hurried apology to the black 
object slowly heaving once more into view. He had 
got as far as : "I beg ten thousand pardons, sir ; it was 
most careless, but I declare I never met anybody com- 
ing round that corner before" (it was the turn to 
Theodore's private apartments) — and just then the light 
fell upon the bearded features of the lately battered, 
and there, fumbling in his pockets for a fresh cigar be- 
fore resuming the restored hat, stood, all unruffled in 
spite of the recent concussion, the Chief Magistrate 
of the nation, and all that eminent personage had to 
say, either by way of rebuke or remission of sins, he 
condensed in three monosyllables and nine letters: 
'"Got a light?" It almost put the sorely disturbed 
subaltern once more at his ease. 



CHAPTER XXXVI' 
STORM AND STRESS 

Brief indeed were the days of happiness allotted to 
Ulysses Grant as President of the United States. 
Stanch, strong and true as were many of his adherents, 
there seemed to be an ever-increasing clamor against 
him or against those about him. For every important 
office at his disposal he had found rival applicants in 
embarrassing numbers. In any event far more could 
be aggrieved than appointed, and the aggrieved, with 
their backers, returned from Washington filled with 
bitterness. No President, of course, escaped this con- 
dition of things, but in the case of Grant it was made 
worse by the undoubted prominence of many of the 
applicants, and the doubtful merit of so many of the 
appointees. Senator Sumner and his admirers believed 
that eminent statesman the logical successor of Mr. 
Secretary Seward in the Department of State. Mr. 
Sumner had more than once expected to supplant Mr. 
Seward during the days of Lincoln, had counted on 
becoming premier of the cabinet upon the impeachment 
of President Johnson, and the resultant elevation of 
Mr. Wade. Mr. Sumner had personally disapproved, 
but publicly supported, the election of General Grant, 
and then, as it were, presented through his emissaries 
his bill for services rendered, and the virtual demand 
for payment in shape of the portfolio of state. This, 
as we have seen, was given temporarily to the man 
who had done more for Grant than all the Senate com- 
bined ; but, having given preference thus to a mere rep- 
resentative over a senatorial applicant, and that senator 
The Senator from Massachusetts, the act was un- 
pardonable in the eyes of Mr. Sumner, who forthwith 

362 



STORM AND STRESS 

found in almost every appointment of President Grant 
a bit of bargain and sale business reprehensible in the 
last degree. It cannot be denied that General Grant's 
original cabinet was selected very much on the same 
principle which prompted his selection of a military 
staff. 

Mr. Sumner and Mr. Fish had been strong personal 
and political friends until the latter was named for the 
very portfolio Sumner so craved for himself, and 
though their friendship and intercourse continued a 
few months longer, it could not stand the test of Sum- 
ner's imperious temper and his venomous pursuit of 
the President. Mr. Fish, a gentleman " to the man- 
ner bom," bore with Sumner long after Mr. Sumner 
had broken with the President. Mr. Fish sorrowed 
for his old friend and associate of senatorial days and 
had long striven to comfort and sustain him. Like Mr. 
Lincoln, Senator Sumner was most unhappy in his 
domestic relations. Unlike Mr. Lincoln, he could not 
manfully bear his trouble; and when Mr. Fish found 
him sobbing like a child over his wounded feelings, and 
besought him to take a run to Europe for a time and 
get away from the scene of his struggles and his sor- 
rows, he added impulsively : " How would you like to 
be minister to England ? " Now, this was but a year 
after Grant's inauguration. Sumner, after first seeming 
to acquiesce in the President's views as to Samana Bay 
and San Domingo, had taken to violent opposition. To 
the amaze and indignation of both General Grant and 
Mr. Secretary Fish, the papers were presently accusing 
them of seeking to bribe Senator Sumner to change his 
vote or his views. The authority for the statement 
was Mr. Sumner himself, the base of it Mr. Fish's im- 
pulsive and unauthorized proposition as to the mission 
to the Court of St. James. The next three years of 
Grant's first administration found the Chairman of the 
Committee on Foreign Relations in constant opposition 

363 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

to the President and the Secretary of State. The close 
of the first term found Senator Sumner Grant's most 
vehement opponent for a second nomination and elec- 
tion. The people by a solid majority vindicated Grant, 
and the Senate deposed Sumner from that all-impor- 
tant chairmanship. It broke the power, if indeed it did 
not break the heart, of Sumner, who speedily fell ill, and 
within the second year of the second term had suc- 
cumbed to angina pectoris. When it is remembered 
that the basis of the Treaty of Washington, as proposed 
and insisted upon by Senator Sumner, was " the with- 
drawal of the British flag from this hemisphere — in- 
cluding the provinces and islands," one can well ap- 
preciate the descriptive of "far-reaching" as applied 
to his statesmanship. It is idle to speculate over what 
John Bull might have said and done had Sumner pre- 
vailed. It is singular that the apostle of peace in our 
country is sometimes author of a policy which can result 
only in bitter war. 

The outcry against and opposition to Grant toward 
the close of his first term took shape in calumny of 
every kind in the public press, in assaults upon his honor, 
integrity and intentions, with Senator Sumner as head 
and front of the move in Congress. Pretty much every- 
thing said in the papers was but amplification of what 
Mr. Sumner said in the Senate. Let us briefly con- 
sider this: 

Paraphrasing Lord Durham, Mr. Sumner had de- 
manded the downfall of this "odious, insulting, de- 
grading, aide-de-campish, incapable administration." 
Odious, insulting and degrading it might have seemed 
to Sumner, but the citizens at large did not so find, and 
declared against him. " Aide-de-campish " it may have 
been, though not to the extent practised openly in later 
years. No one hitherto seemed to have questioned the 
right of a President to choose his private secretaries. An 
officer is no less a citizen because of his soldiership. 

364 



STORM AND STRESS 

In point of fact, he is more of a citizen since he can 
be expected and required to act as the government 
wishes — something the sovereign citizen often flatly de- 
cHnes. Surely the secretaries selected were as brainy 
and efficient as any of Grant's acquaintance who could 
be chosen from civil life. Moreover, they did the work 
on their army pay and saved to the state the salaries 
provided for civil incumbents. The papers, of course, 
made no mention of, and possibly saw no merit in, that. 
As for the politicians, it was simply a case of so much 
pay and patronage wasted. 

The crux of that complaint may be found in the 
'fact that most private and presidential secretaries, 
known to Washington society before the days of Grant, 
had been nominees or possibly pupils of men prominent 
in political life — schooled in the ways of, and in the 
observance demanded by, politicians. Even when men 
were chosen, as were John Hay and Nicolay by Mr. 
Lincoln, because of brains and qualifications of their 
own, there was sure to be a criticism, but Lincoln in his 
inimitable way could placate the complainant. One 
irate war governor who appealed to him, indignant at 
being detained a few minutes by Mr. Hay until the Presi- 
dent could dispose of an importunate caller, furnishes 
a case in point. Lincoln listened all patience and ap- 
parent sympathy, then disarmed, or at least mollified, his 
angry visitor by the whimsical point of his reply: 
" Governor, you and I are in the same boat, and we 
will have to help each other out. Do you know that that 
young man has had to act for me and think for me so 
often, and has helped me so much, that the chances 
are that he sometimes thinks he is the president, and. 
Governor, I let him think so." 

It was no more consolatory, perhaps, than Mr. Lin- 
coln's response to the influential statesman who came 
to lodge furious complaint against General Sherman 
for threatening to hang a certain constituent of his if 

365 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

ever again that constituent showed himself within the 
lines of the Army of the Tennessee — " That is serious ; 
that is indeed serious/' said Lincoln, reflectively. " I 
know that fellow Sherman. He's a man of his word. 
Take my advice, Senator, and tell your friend to give 
him a wide berth, for if he said he'll hang him, he'll 
do it." 

But Lincoln had been gifted as Grant had not, and 
the latter when assailed promptly showed fight or else 
stood mute. With the press he was widely at odds 
almost from the start, with the odds on the side of the 
press, the President and his defenders being confined 
to mere statement of facts. It mattered little now that 
he might be the most abstinent of men, that he had not 
always been so gave abundant opening for reportorial 
flights. It mattered little that Grant's admirations, those 
swift pacers or trotters, were the property of men high 
in business or professional standing, his old-time love 
for a good horse led to the newspaper claim that his 
boon companions were " horse jockeys " and " swag- 
gering dragoons." 

There was not a symptom of swagger about the four 
officers on duty: Badeau wore spectacles and a crip- 
pled foot, Dent a perpetual smile, Babcock the look 
rather of the politician than the soldier (and in due 
season developed some of the characteristics), and none 
of them wore uniform. As for Porter — Porter, with 
his inscrutable face, his consummate poise and sang- 
froid — Porter who, with sepulchral gravity, could say 
the most side-splitting things — Porter was a joy peren- 
nial to his chief and a tower of strength to his admin- 
istration, but the fact remained that they were all four 
of the army and that was enough in the eyes of the 
fault-finders. Four long years Porter stood by his Gen- 
eral, but at the close of the first administration he had 
the deep sagacity to look to the future and accept a 
more lucrative and far less hazardous employment. 

366 



STORM AND STRESS 

" More reprehensible . . . more illegal than 
anything alleged against Andrew Johnson," declared 
Mr. Sumner, in his famous assault upon the President, 
and yet the only acts of alleged illegality as against the 
array charged to Johnson, was General Grant's tentative 
in sending a staff officer (Babcock) to sound the San 
Domingo officials as to a future connection with the 
United States. That Babcock should have announced 
himself as " aide-de-camp to the President," and should 
have had one of our prehistoric tubs from the navy to 
paddle him about the islands of the Antilles, were both 
ill-advised — not that there was anything much amiss 
in the use of either the title or the ship, but that Sumner 
made it so appear. And people of the good old Bay 
State, who long had sat and worshipped at the feet of 
Sumner, were now aghast at the revealed depravity 
of the general of their admiration, thus become exposed 
as a military despot. The legislature of his State, how- 
ever, did not so comprehensively swallow Mr. Sumner's 
slander, and notwithstanding his eminence, resented 
his joining hands with the " any thing-to-beat-Grant " 
element, and actually passed a vote of censure. 

But there were two charges made by Mr. Sumner 
which the soldiers about Grant could not effectively 
combat, and against which Rawlins, in part at least, is 
known to have warned him — the acceptance of gifts and 
the appointment of relatives to office. As to the former 
there was absolutely no reason why Grant should have 
declined the gifts in the way of boxes of cigars, brands 
of tobacco, pipes of briar or meerschaum and all man- 
ner of little things that came from genuine and admir- 
ing friends. There was no reason why he should not 
have accepted the house and homestead tendered him by 
a grateful community, and having accepted one, was 
there reason why he should decline to accept those of 
others? The great trouble growing out of it all was 
that some gifts were not as innocuous, and some givers 

367 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

not as disinterested as others. Mr. Borie, of Phila- 
delphia, was probably one of the subscribers, and pos- 
sibly one of the prime movers, in the purchase of the 
Philadelphia homestead, and Senator Sumner did not 
scruple to declare Mr. Borie's appointment as Secre- 
tary of the Navy a quid pro quo on the part of Grant ; 
whereas Mr. Borie never sought, never wanted, and 
speedily rid himself of that portfolio, and accepted it 
only to save Grant from temporary embarrassment. 

Most of the gifts lavished upon Grant were just 
such as successful generals had accepted without re- 
proach in days gone by, but Grant's came in swarms 
and continued after his nomination and election. Wash- 
ington, under similar circumstances, had loftily de- 
clined, but these gifts gave infinite pleasure to that 
power behind our silent soldier's sword — his wife — and 
what Julia Dent very much approved. Grant could 
seldom deny. But that he did at times assert himself, 
and oppose her, was aj)parent in his declination of the 
third nomination suggested toward the close of the 
second term. Mrs. Grant ardently hoped and prayed 
that her husband would accept a third term, confidently 
believing it could be his. Sherman, Badeau and certain 
of his military counsellors, at least, were set against it. 
So were the wisest of his civil advisers — Secretary Fish, 
especially. 

As to that charge of " nepotism " which Sumner 
exploited and the press had long proclaimed, it must 
be owned that to a degree achieved by the kith and kin, 
by blood or marriage, of no other occupant of the presi- 
dential chair, the relatives of Ulysses Grant succeeded 
in scrambling somehow into place. Early in his career 
as a general, as we have seen, they essayed to *' work " 
him in the West. Once fairly installed at the White 
House it appears that he had not to be importuned, 
nor were the chosen ones to be charged in many cases 
to Mrs. Grant. There were brothers-in law, nephews 

368 



STORM AND STRESS 

and cousins; and two of the brothers-in-law, at least, 
were given highly important posts. The claim that no 
less than thirteen — some newspapers put it at forty — of 
the President's appointees were family connections, 
injured him far more than their gratitude, if given, 
could ever have aided, and some of the results were in- 
jurious to the last degree. 

" The New Orleans Custom House," declared Mr. 
Sumner, in open senate, " has a story much worse. 
Here presidential pretension is mixed with unblushing 
corruption in which the collector, a brother-in-law, is 
a chief actor." 

It so happened, oddly enough, that the writer was 
brought into official and personal relations with this 
particular brother-in-law. Time and again during the 
year 1870-71 there came to West Point from New 
Orleans boxes for Cadet Fred, which, a^ regulations 
required, that young gentleman had to open in presence 
of the " officer in charge," and some forbidden or con- 
traband luxuries not infrequently appeared therein, 
and had to be thrown out. The year after Fred's gradu- 
ation this occasional "officer in charge" found himself 
in New Orleans as aide-de-camp to the general com- 
manding the Department of the Gulf. Those were 
lively days in Louisiana. Two rival legislatures were 
in session, riots were frequent, wars and rumors of 
wars kept the wires hot and the aide-de-camp bearing 
messages between his general and the governor and 
the collector in question. It took less than half an eye 
to see that the latter was but a catspaw, a bewildered 
tool, in the hands of half a dozen shrewd and designing 
men. The coup d'etat to which Mr. Casey lent himself 
in bidding a baker's dozen of the obstructive but legally- 
chosen legislature to dinner aboard the revenue cutter, 
and spiriting the entire party off to an undesired cruise 
in the Gulf of Mexico, proved a " boomerang " at Wash- 
ington. These legislators were imperatively needed for 
24 369 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

the passage of certain acts opposed by the " Custom 
House " faction, and this enforced absence, contrived 
by the aid of Air. Casey, became in the hands of the 
congressional investigating committee, promptly sent 
to the scene, nothing short of abduction and kidnapping. 
The pitiable exhibition made by the collector in his ex- 
amination by the Hon. Mr. Spear — a most suggestive 
name — was something no witness to the scene could 
soon forget, li ever man had cause at that time to 
echo the prayer, " Heaven save me from my friends," 
it was President Grant. The sorrows of his two ad- 
ministrations, the scandals of the " Star route " affair, 
the thunderclap that came to the War Secretary as well 
as to the President in the sudden charge of bribery and 
corruption (accepted in silence because that genial and 
debonair official proved far more of a man than the 
original Adam), the innumerable aspersions and 
calumnies — far too often were grounded in some one 
of the friends the unsuspecting President had favored. 
His own rectitude and fidelity stood unconquerable, no 
matter by whom assailed, to the triumphant yet sor- 
rowful end. 

In spite of all the alleged mismanagement the nation 
throve, the country prospered, the debt was greatly 
lessened, the people reasoned for themselves, and though 
many fell away from their allegiance, more stood firmly 
by the soldier-leader of their original choice. The 
responsibilities of the office, as he said, he had felt, yet 
never feared. The statesmanship which fathered the 
treaty of Washington, the settlement in favor of the 
United States of the Alabama claims, and the veto 
against such numbers, even of his own party, of the 
inflation act, will compare favorably with that which is 
ascribed to even the most gifted of our Presidents — 
something which Grant never thought himself to be. 
He found the country in turmoil when he took the reins ; 

370 



STORM AND STRESS 

he left it as he hoped, and in his inaugural he had 
prayed, almost at peace. 

But though that second term had come to him as 
a vindication of the first, it closed in such a cloud of 
calumny that he was glad to leave it; and Julia Dent, 
loyal to his wishes when once announced, stifling her 
own disappointment, graciously put everything about 
the White House in order for her successor-to-be, pre- 
pared for the newcomers a welcome luncheon on their 
arrival from the ceremony of inauguration, tactfully 
took the arm of Mr. Hayes and led him to what was to 
become his own table, and then, when the bright and 
cheery repast was ended, as tactfully took her leave, 
the arm of her own soldier-husband, and gracefully 
retired from the scene of her social triumphs. 



CHAPTER XXXVII 
FOREIGN TRAVEL AND FINAL RETURN 

Yet in spite of those social successes there had been 
family anxieties and cares. The hearts of both father 
and mother were bound up in their winsome daughter. 
The child had been the object of no little attention every- 
where : and now, even before she had donned the long 
garb of young ladyhood, attentions of more pressing 
nature were being lavished upon her. Several rivals 
were in the field. Mrs. Grant took alarm. The Bories 
were going to England, and she besought them to take 
Nellie with them and away from these young gallants 
who sought to woo and win her. 

It was a case of fleeing from one evil to others we 
know not of. Several months were they gone and, on 
the homeward voyage, Princess Nellie met a young 
Englishman of excellent family, who proceeded to de- 
vote himself. The voyage was rough, the Bories were 
poor sailors and kept below. Proximity did the rest. 
The joyous welcome to home and White House 
took on a tinge of anxiety when Mr. Algernon Sartoris 
presently called, and it became obvious in spite of all 
precautions that love had laughed at locksmiths, that 
Nellie's heart was lost to this handsome young Briton. 
What it meant to the President no man was ever told. 
From the first, however, it is known that he looked upon 
the suit with apprehension if not aversion. Yet at 
the time no valid objection could be urged. Sorely 
against his will, the mother and daughter persuaded 
him to hear Mr. Sartoris. The young man was bidden 
to dinner and later invited to the billiard room, was 
tendered a cigar, and then the two were left alone. 
Grant in grim silence sitting and studying the abashed 

372 



FOREIGN TRAVEL AND FINAL RETURN 

and nervous suitor. There was, as Badeau tells it, only 
one way out of it: "Mr. President, I want to marry 
your daughter," said Sartoris, and so the ice was broken. 

It was a beautiful wedding, say all the chroniclers, 
but men nearest the President could never forget the 
foreboding and sorrow in his face. From the very 
first he seemed to dread, even to foresee the outcome. 
But his beloved daughter and her mother had made 
up their minds and he could name no reason for re- 
fusal. Welcomed and beloved by all in her young hus- 
band's home, almost as in her own where she was 
idolized, our Princess had that at least to sustain and 
cheer her when, before very long, convinced that her 
father's fears had been too well founded. 

Once away from the White House, spending a 
month or more as the gviests of Mr. and Mrs. Fish, 
the Grants found themselves again the object of almost 
universal adulation. The wave of popular sentiment 
returned in full volume. The few mistakes, the many 
calumnies, of the eight years' reign were forgotten. 
Once again Grant was the great soldier of the nation, 
their hero, their foremost citizen, and he who had been 
so saddened by the manifold attacks was amazed to find 
the very papers that had assailed him as President, now 
lauding him as the typical American. He was going 
abroad. He was about to spend two or three years in 
travel and observation, and all the United States seemed 
bent on saying to Christendom and the far Orient, 
" This is a man, our most honored son and soldier ; 
bid him welcome befitting his soldiership, his services, 
and his exalted station — the foremost republican of the 
foremost republic," and practically the wodd obeyed. 

The departure from Philadelphia was an ovation 
the like of which even Grant never before had ex- 
perienced, the voyage a joy to him. The landing in 
England, the public receptions in Liverpool, Man- 
chester, Sheffield and so on, the deputations and ad- 

373 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

dresses of the British workingmen, all proved a revela- 
tion. It dawned upon him of a sudden that to an ex- 
tent never before accorded an American he was being 
received with honors and ceremonies approximating 
those prescribed for royalty. 

Badeau, who for long years had been his close at- 
tendant at home, was there to meet and escort him. 
Badeau was then consul-general and thoroughly con- 
versant with the ceremonial etiquette which hedges every 
approach to the throne. Badeau looked to see his shy 
and simple-mannered general of the sixties a trifle 
abashed and nervous, and was delighted to find him 
placid and self-poised. Badeau wondered what might 
be the outcome when the mayor and corporation at the 
great banquet at the Guild Mall should toast the guest 
of honor, and Badeau could hardly believe his ears 
when the speechless soldier of yore calmly arose, faced 
that brilliant assemblage and spoke freely, fluently and 
well. From that time forth our former President had 
found himself, as it were, and the faculty of terse and 
even felicitous expression of his views, no matter how 
public the occasion or how vast his audience. Badeau 
felt less concern, but some curiosity, as to the out- 
come of the ceremonial visit to the Queen at Windsor. 
General Grant was not the first of the family to be 
received. Her Majesty had been graciously pleased to 
welcome winsome Nellie " and the lady accompanying 
her " to Buckingham Palace, and now that the General 
had been the honored guest of the Prince of Wales, of 
Lord Beaconsfield and others, and Queen Victoria had 
finally returned from the Highlands to Windsor, a visit 
was arranged for General and Mrs. Grant. 

It has all been told inimitably in Badeau's Memoirs, 
and variously described in the press. The customs of 
royalty and those of republics are so much at variance 
that it is difficult for the .American mind to take a toler- 
ant view of the Old World etiquette involved in this 

374 



FOREIGN TRAVEL AND FINAL RETURN 

and certain other functions in honor of our foremost 
citizen. Yet, during the presidency of Washington, 
of Buchanan, of Grant and certain of Grant's succes- 
sors, questions of precedence and ceremonial have come 
up in which our American sovereigns have been quite 
as tenacious as ever were court chamberlain or im- 
perial master of ceremonies abroad. General Grant, 
who at first scoffed at White House formalities, white 
ties and " swallow-tails," became speedily a stickler for 
exact and punctilious arrangement of guests at every 
dinner or reception. President Grant declined to call 
upon Prince Arthur of Connaught — third son of Vic- 
toria of England — or to return the call of the Grand 
Duke Alexis, son of the Czar of all the Russias. Such 
a call, he reasoned, would be a recognition of royalty 
which the head of a democratic nation should avoid, 
and so when in turn he visited foreign territory, although 
all England arose to receive him, and the band played 
" Hail Columbia " at his approach, the Duke of Con- 
naught would not come up from Aldershot to call upon 
Grant, and when Fred, the son of our President, ap- 
peared in the suite of General Sherman, and was pre- 
sented to the Czar, that monarch, remembering the 
Washington incident which had given him such annoy, 
stiffly acknowledged the lieutenant's confidently good- 
natured salutation with, " I hope you are well, sir," and 
turned back to talk with Sherman, thereby reversing 
the proceedings of the head of the Ottoman empire, 
who descended from his throne, took Fred by the hand, 
led him up to a seat alongside, and left General Sherman 
to his ministers. 

There is something really comical about the episode 
at Windsor. Baby Jesse, the family pet and prodigy, 
by that time a genuine American youth of nineteen, 
had accompanied his father and mother to Windsor, 
but when he found that only General and Mrs. Grant 
were to sit with Her Majesty at dinner — that General 

375 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

Badeau and himself were to be assigned to a table 
with the lords and ladies of " the Household," our third 
son was up in arms at once, refused to sit with " the 
servants," and declared he would go back to London 
instanter if the plan were not changed. The fact that 
even the premier of England, even ambassadors and 
visiting members of the government always dined with 
" the Household " unless specially bidden to sit with 
the Queen — the fact that our American minister pleni- 
potentiary and his distinguished wife were present and 
were not to sit with Her Majesty, had no mollifying 
effect upon our representative of Young America. Jesse 
stood squarely upon his rights as having been invited by 
the Queen to Windsor. 

Here as elsewhere, what his wife or children de- 
manded, had its weight with Grant. Badeau was sent 
to the Master of the Royal Household, and that courte- 
ous gentleman waited at once upon the Queen. Her 
Majesty, doubtless much diverted, heard of the young 
gentleman's ultimatum, and was pleased to order that 
he be assigned to her table, and then amused the Gen- 
eral, who was in no wise fluttered by the incident or by 
the royal presence, by a most gracious manner. " She 
seemed to be trying to put me at my ease," he laughed 
to Badeau, later. 

Perhaps the most amusing incident of the memor- 
able evening, however, was when Her Majesty, strik- 
ing a congenial topic, spoke to Mrs. Grant of the mani- 
fold cares which beset her as sovereign of the British 
Empire, and was promptly met with, " Oh, yes, I can 
imagine them ; I, too, have been the wife of a great 
ruler." It is remembered that Mrs. Grant was a most 
difficult person to patronize in the least at Washington, 
and it is well within the bounds of reason to believe that 
Julia Dent considered the wife of Ulysses Grant, lately 
chief magistrate of the American nation, as quite the 
social equal of the Sovereign Queen of Great Britain 

376 



FOREIGN TRAVEL AND FINAL RETURN 

and Ireland; moreover, that she rather rejoiced in an 
opportunity of expressing her views to that effect. 

All the same, though other former presidents had 
visited England, none had been received with the hon- 
ors and distinction accorded General Grant, Once only 
was there a slight, the offender being the Earl of Dudley, 
a peer who lacked the breeding of our tanner's son, and 
who could never have won from the lips of England's 
great divine and orator the tribute which publicly he 
paid to Grant. 

In Belgium, however, the king and queen received 
General and Mrs. Grant in every sense as equals — the 
king delighting our General by personally leading Mrs. 
Grant to dinner. In London our General and gentle- 
man gravely excused himself from taking his place with 
royalty in the court quadrille, to which he, but not Mrs. 
Grant, had been invited. In Belgium, in France, he 
could find no possible flaw in the honors accorded the 
" first lady " of his land and the only one of his heart. 
There the reception given them both was perfect in 
every detail, and Grant's happiness in her happiness was 
complete. 

The expenses of the first administration had ex- 
ceeded the presidential pay. Congress raised the salary 
in time for the second term, so that Grant had some 
thousands of dollars to provide for a long and pro- 
tracted tour abroad. Then Ulysses, Jr., had married 
into millionaire circles in the far West, and had invested 
a few other thousands for his father. Those were the 
*' bonanza " days, and Ulysses, Jr., was enabled to hand 
over to his father something like fifty thousand dollars 
in profit. Grant felt rich, free from care, full of content 
and health, and all through those delightful days in 
Switzerland and Italy he seemed renewing his youth. 
He could not, however, enjoy the glorious scenery, or 
endure the incessant music, except at the side of his 
wife. If any one else, even temporarily, took the seat 

377 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

by Mrs. Grant in car or carriage the ride was spoiled 
for him, and she, grandmother though she was, re- 
joiced in her dominion and openly and triumphantly 
coquetted with him. It was a far cry from the palaces 
of Windsor and of Buckingham, from the Elysee and 
the honors of a queen, to the shaded porch of White 
Haven and the arching foliage of the old Gravois road, 
but the woman's heart within her beat in the fulness 
of pride and joy that the '* little lieutenant in the big 
epaulets " who had become the greatest soldier of his 
day, and the acclaimed ruler of sixty millions of people, 
was to the very zenith of his fame and to the end of the 
life accorded him her constant lover and devoted ad- 
mirer. 

Two years they journeyed leisurely through Europe 
and the Orient, Grant especially impressed with what he 
saw in China and Japan. Then homeward across the 
blue Pacific they came, and California rose at their 
approach and flocked to the Golden Gate to give them 
welcome such as even California never yet had given 
mortal man. It was in the fall of 1879, and it was a 
year before the presidential campaign. 

The close election in November, '76, and the sub- 
sequent administration of President Hayes had com- 
bined to make the Republican party doubtful of the 
issue in 1880. Its old-time leaders believed there was 
just one man capable of re-arousing the desired senti- 
ment, and that was Grant. If only they could keep him 
abroad until the psychological moment — hold him away 
from our shores until just before the convention — the 
blaze of enthusiasm which would surely kindle at his 
coming would sweep the entire country and consume 
all possible opposition. It is probable that, better man- 
aged, the scheme would have succeeded. It is hazarded 
that had they sent some gifted emissary to lay the plan 
before Mrs. Grant and induce her to persuade him that 
there were still people and places that she might wish 

378 



FOREIGN TRAVEL AND FINAL RETURN 

to see (for he indeed would gladly have visited Aus- 
tralia), he surely would have yielded to her wishes. 
Thus the managers could have tided over that fateful 
winter and spring of 1879-80, and then, at the last 
moment, along in May, permitted him to reach our 
western shores, to receive his tumultuous and tremendous 
ovation, and, proclaiming him at Chicago as the one 
obvious and logical leader of the whole people, declare 
him the candidate of the Republican party for re- 
election to the presidency of the United States. 

It might not have gone by acclamation as it did in 
Cincinnati in '68, but the chances are that it would have 
prevailed, and that, rather than humiliate their great 
leader, even many who opposed on principle a third 
term would have cast their vote and elected him. 

But, Grant returned too soon. The enthusiasm and 
excitement died away. The scheme for his renomina- 
tion became public, and instantly its opponents set to 
work against it. Ardently as Julia Dent desired to 
reign again in Washington ; undoubtedly as Grant him' 
self would now have been glad to return to office, re- 
freshed by years of rest and reinforced by the oppor- 
tunities of seeing for himself the rulers and the nations 
of the known world ; unquestionably as he was far bet- 
ter fitted for the presidency than ever he had been be- 
fore, even devoted personal friends disapproved the 
project, and — it was not to be. Far too many sturdy 
citizens held to the republican doctrine that eight years 
in that high office should be the uttermost limit accorded 
any one man, no matter what his character and qualifica- 
tions, no matter what the eminence of his past. Grant, 
with his old Guard, the immortal three hundred and 
seven " Stalwarts," came nearer a third term than any 
other aspirant ever has or probably ever will. He in 
whose sight a thousand years are but as yesterday had 
reserved him for one more supreme test and sublime 
humiliation be f pre according the final honors which 

379 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

overshadowed even those lavished on our martyred 
Lincoln. 

They visited the Galena home a little while, but 
they had outgrown it. They spent some weeks in 
Chicago with Fred, now aide-de-camp to Sheridan, and 
with Fred's own little household. It would be untrue to 
say that Grant cared little for his defeat. Like any 
strong man he hated to be beaten and he felt that he 
was far better fitted for the office than ever he had 
been. Defeated, however, he was, and might now with 
entire propriety have sought retirement. He might, 
as others less injured have done, " sulked in his tent," 
but the party leaders who had compassed his defeat 
now had to beg of him and of Roscoe Conkling that 
they should help elect the successful candidate of the 
convention, or see the country fall into the hands of 
the opposing party. And he whom they had rejected 
turned to and worked for their success. 

That luckless campaign, however, had embittered 
Grant against men high in public station, even one or 
two who had been his devoted friends — even Elihu 
W'asiiburne. Unknown even to Mrs Grant, and at 
the urgings of John Russell Young, who had been his 
companion in the joumeyings abroad, and who knew 
politics at home, Grant had written a letter warranting 
the withdrawal of his name as candidate, but that letter 
somehow was seen by only a chosen few, who pledged 
each other, probably, to secrecy. 

Incensed with tlie men he thought had belittled him 
in permitting his name to be submitted when it was 
plain that the opposition was far too powerful, angered 
at the new president who, he believed, had slighted his 
wishes, and generally disheartened with politics for all 
time. Grant sojourned awhile in Mexico, spent summers 
at Long Branch, enjoyed the society of certain old 
friends and chums, and the growing belief that his 
investments with his banker-son were destined to make 
him a millionaire. 

380 




rrom the cullecli.iii of I- . 11. M(.-aer\c 

GRANT THE BANKER. 1883 



FOREIGN TRAVEL AND FINAL RETURN 

Then President Garfield was shot, languished and 
died — a victim to our national laxity which thus far has 
cost us the lives of three of the best and kindliest of 
our chief magistrates and may yet cost us more — and 
Grant, who had mutely followed the pall of Lincoln, 
whom he honored and revered, of statesmen like Chase 
and Sumner, with whom he had seriously differed, ap- 
peared in the train of him he had helped to elect and 
later learned to distrust. Then came the administra- 
tion of Mr. Arthur, with whom at first the former sol- 
dier-president seemed to have such influence that swarms 
of ofl^ice-seekers implored his aid. Then that influence 
also waned. Grant was sensitive to a degree absolutely 
incompatible with political life or association. He 
would have lived and died a happier man had he, like 
Sherman, refused every offer that led to the presidential 
chair. 

He had returned from Europe in '79, worth pre- 
sumably, says Badeau, one hundred thousand dollars, 
and the owner of two or three handsome homes. On 
the income of this sum he and his beloved wife could 
live in comfort in some small city or the country, but 
they longed to live as they had been living, " in the lime- 
light " and in town. It was then that Ulysses, Jr., the 
putative financier of the family, and whose investments 
had certainly doubled the father's little nestegg in the 
past, tendered the general a partnership in the firm of 
Grant & Ward, which was doing, as all could see, a 
wonderful business in Wall Street. The fact that the 
President had allied himself with the house would un- 
doubtedly add to its prestige and prominence. The 
name was worth all it might earn — and more. 

Then followed four years of prosperous ease, of a 
bank account that placed our late President " beyond 
the dreams of avarice " and blinded him as to the 
methods of the management. Then came the deluge. 
Then followed desolation. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII 

THE FINAL BLOW 

Long months before the melancholy failure of that 
ill-omened bank, the General had told Badeau of the 
fabulous profits the firm was realizing, and Badeau went 
to their old comrade of the war and White House days — 
to Horace Porter — and asked that reticent but ex- 
perienced soldier-citizen his opinion, and Porter sol- 
emnly shook his head. Such profits, he said, were 
impossible in a business honestly conducted. But Grant 
saw on every side men by the dozen who had started 
with less than his modest capital and had gathered 
fortunes in Wall Street. He was so confident in the 
sagacity and judgment of Ulysses, Jr., that he invested 
his every dollar with the firm and reinvested every 
penny of the profits which he did not lavish on his loved 
ones or on his followers and friends. Like Thackeray's 
most lovable hero, Colonel Newcome, he thought to 
share his good fortune with many of his kith and kin 
and urged their sending their savings to be invested for 
them by brilliant young " Buck " and his sagacious 
partner — that wonderful wizard in finance, Mr. Ward. 
Aside from the chagrin of seeing some of his recom- 
mendations disregarded, and certain of his opponents 
rewarded first by Mr. Garfield and later by Mr. Arthur, 
General Grant was living in those years a life of ease, 
luxury and freedom from care such as never before 
he had enjoyed. Julia Dent was as ever first and fore- 
most in his world, but the children were the source of 
pride and joy unspeakable. Devoted, dutiful and loyal 
they unquestionably were, but Grant believed of his 
first born that he was destined to become renowned as 
a general, and of " Buck " and Jesse that they were 

382 



THE FINAL BLOW 

born financiers and business men. As for Princess 
Nellie, the father's love and yearning for that one 
daughter of his house and name was beyond all measure. 
'No man ever loved home, wife and children more 
tenderly, more absorbingly. 

Although widely scattered at the time, this heart- 
united household had been anticipating a blithe and 
merry Christmas at the close of the year 1883. When 
alighting from his carriage just before midnight, with 
the welcoming chimes pealing on the frosty air, the 
General's foot slipped on the icy pavement, he fell 
heavily, a muscle snapped in the thigh, possibly one of 
those injured twenty years earlier, the day of that fate- 
ful stumble at Carrollton, and he was carried into the 
house, never thereafter to leave it in health or strength. 

Crutches again, and later a cane, long were neces- 
sary. In March they took him to Fortress Monroe so 
that he could hobble about in the soft air and sunshine. 
In April he was back again in Gotham, able to drive his 
favorite team, but not to walk. On Sunday, the 4th of 
May, the wizard partner, Ward, came into their home 
and quite casually announced that the Marine Bank 
of New York, in which Grant & Ward had large de- 
posits, needed perhaps one hundred and fifty thousand 
dollars to tide them over a temporary difficulty. If 
General Grant could borrow that much over Monday, 
Grant & Ward would not have to lose a cent ; other- 
wise they stood to lose perhaps fifty or sixty thousand. 
Of course the lender would lose nothing, said Ward, 
as there was a million, at least, of securities in the 
vaults. 

The world knows the rest — how unsuspiciously our 
General called on his friend and fellow horseman, Mr. 
William H. Vanderbilt, said that he needed one hundred 
and fifty thousand for a day or so, and came away with 
a cheque for that amount. For no other man prob- 
ably would Mr, Vanderbilt have parted unsecured with 

383 



THi: TRUE ULYSSES S. GIL\NT 

such a sum. Thr cheque was prompily endorsed and 
turned over to Mr Ward, who took it unconcernedly 
and then his leave. 

Tuesday morning. May Nh. lielievin^ hini^lf .^ 
,. •' - - ' •' - » --• •-• '-''Ttlness to \ an«ler*>ili 

ihr Wall Street oflve 
to hnd an Of T u had better 

j:o home— Uk .^..„ ... >cs. Jr. with 

fni*erv in hi* eves, but Grant rtayrd lo inve^tijjatc 
H4f!- • ' his 

old . ^t "^ 

»trrsa and ttorm. " Wc arc all rumetl here, he simply 
Mid. Ward had " ' ' ' ' •'^- vaults with 

him. and when : ' »he hoasteil 

** tecuritirs " were found to be but *ii I"he rum 

was ''■ '-'^ 

I i* thrv had— «U the beautiful pits, tn> 

phics. » Mr houses ownetl by *■'• 

tiranl in ■:■ . ^ '* rqnirchasctl I>ent j , 

erty about St. Loub. had to be sold. Grmnt insisted, 
t' It left them, for ' ' * ' * nhsolutelv 

I It had dra|f};< them, it 

involve*! his honoreti lume in a 1 "f censure, 

critK-ism an' ' *" "^ •.•• crushet! him 

I Allm from <•. the insults and 

:..' -..:• " • the 

•M f-,r". • ■- davs 

of his earlier humiliation. Over the dq>ths of the 

misr- • 

horr :;i 

:! 1 know the ^ :l cost him (m\y one wfmian 

•:' ! f.TintIv see • i» i,w^ hands there were outstrelche*! 
J . h,:n ir-.;. inter, and monrv to meet the immedute need. 
Then. a« the storm subs: f Ward's 

villainy and Grant's in:. wn. new 

measures were taken to provide ai^inst absolute want 
A trust fund had already been raised. A measure was 

i*4 



THE FINAL BLOW 

speedily set on foot to restore to Grant the rank and 
pay which he had surrendered on assuming the presi- 
dency, and a modest competence would thus be insured 
him and those he loved. There was a home in which to 
live. They could even spend the summers at the sea- 
shore. There were offers of congenial occupation that 
might have proved mildly lucrative. There was 
measurable return to hope and possible health. There 
had never been complaint or repining. To all about him 
he had been gentleness, consideration, kindliness itself. 
There was just one cause of new, yet slight anxiety: 

All through that summer of '84, while at Long 
Branch, his throat had been giving him pain, and a 
Philadelphia physician, examining it for the first time 
late in September, advised, even urged, says Badeau, his 
consulting a specialist on returning to town. For a 
time he took no heed. He was writing now, long hours 
each day, but at last he called, as further urged by his 
own physician, upon that distinguished expert. Dr. J. H. 
Douglas, and that evening calmly admitted that the 
trouble in the throat was cancerous in tendency. And 
that this was true, the fact that he suddenly dropped 
the luxury of all the days that had followed Donelson — 
his cigar — and the sufferings that followed in November 
and December proved beyond possibility of doubt. 

By mid-winter the torture had become incessant, the 
weakness so alarming that daily visits to his physician 
were abandoned, and he was now spending long hours 
of pain and distress, propped in a reclining chair. Fred, 
with his wife and children, had come to help and cheer 
him. Friends and old comrades were constant in their 
calls. The success of the few articles written for the 
Century had been so marked that the publishers urgently 
asked for more. For a time his suffering and weakness 
were such that he shrank from the effort, but when 
the offers (in which our great author and humorist 
" Mark Twain " had been a prominent adviser) 
25 38S 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

took definite shape, and he was induced to prepare his 
own Memoirs for publication, it seemed as though new 
Hfe and purpose were vouchsafed him, for in spite of 
that sufTering and weakness he set sturdily to work, 
dictating so long as the condition of his throat would 
permit, reading over the copied pages, comparing 
records, reports and orders, and finding comfort un- 
speakable in his task and in the hope that the resultant 
book would find such a sale as to place his loved ones 
once again in ease and aftiuence. 

Twice or thrice it seemed as though he might not 
be spared to finish it. Once in April they believed him 
going. Once, in the dead of night again, violent hemor- 
rhage ensued, and the physician sleeping in the adjoin- 
ing room and suddenly aroused, bent every efTort to 
check the flow, yet thought his efforts vain. Death 
seemed so imminent that April night that even Mrs. 
Grant, who had never lost hope or courage, now, kneel- 
ing beside him, besought his blessing. They were all 
gathered about him by that time — even sorrowing Nellie 
from her distant home across the sea, and it had been 
sweet to see the joy in his fading eyes as they watched 
and followed her. And then he rallied as he had at 
Shiloh, and firmly, grimly faced the destroyer he had 
dared on a dozen battlefields. And the summer came 
and found him still laboring at those Memoirs, still 
suflfering untold, almost unbearable, pain, fighting on to 
finish the work in hand before the ever-increasing force 
and fur}' of the destroyer should utterly prevail. 

And meanwhile a nation stood with bated breath 
and watched and prayed. Crowds gathered about the 
house and importuned the physicians for tidings. Con- 
gress had passed amid scenes of emphatic popular ap- 
proval the bill restoring him again to the generalship of 
old — almost the last act signed by Mr. Arthur before 
leaving, as it was almost the first commission signed by 
Mr. Cleveland after entering, the White House. 

386 




I photograph in the collection nf F. II Meserve 

THE LAST DAYS 
Grant and family at Mount McGregor 



THE FINAL BLOW 

Then presently, for quiet and for better air, as all 
remember, they bore him to the Drexel cottage at 
Mount McGregor, near Saratoga Springs, and here, his 
voice utterly gone, compelled to make his wishes known 
by signs, compelled to complete the pages of his Memoirs 
with pad and pencil, our stricken soldier indomitably 
held to his self-appointed task, once more "fighting it 
out on this line if it took all summer." Never even 
at Shiloh, in front of Vicksburg, or in the fire-flashing 
Wilderness was he more tenacious, determined, heroic, 
for now intense sufTering accompanied almost every 
move and moment. Physicians were constantly at hand ; 
I'rcd, the devoted son, ever at his side. Here there 
came to see him and to sympathize old comrades — even 
oM enemies — of the war days, all thought of rancor 
buried now. Here, just as thirty years earlier he had 
hastened to offer aid, came Buckner (and this time 
unprotesting) in unconditional surrender; for beneath 
the shadow of that hovering wing the last vestige of 
sectional pride gave way to fond memories of the old 
and firm friendship. Here, almost as the twilight deep- 
ened into the gloom of night eternal, they bore him the 
tribute of honor and respect from men whom he had 
vehemently opposed — foeman-in-chief to the Union, 
JefTerson Davis, and soldier-candidate and political foe, 
Winfield S. Hancock. Here they read him letters, tele- 
grams, editorials from every corner of the Union he 
had striven to weld and secure, every line telling of 
world-wide sympathy, honor and affection. Here, 
ahnost at the last, he pencilled those farewell pages of 
those fruitful volumes, which, whatever his earlier de- 
fects in style, have been declared classic in modern 
literature. Here, ere the light went out forever, he 
wrote the pathetic missive, his final words of love, long- 
ing and devotion to the wife whom he held peerless 
among women, to the children whom he loved with such 
infinite tenderness, and for whose future comfort, even 

387 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

in face of such persistent torment and impending death, 
he had labored to the very last. 

And then, as he completed the final paragraph — the 
story of his soldier-life and services — and with falter- 
ing hand signed the final letter, he closed his wearied 
eyes upon the group that hovered ever about him, eager 
to gamer every look and whisper, and so the long fight 
ended, even as it had begun, almost without a sigh. 
Apparently without consciousness of pain, certainly 
without struggle or suffering, surrounded by that de- 
voted houseiiold — wife, sons and only daughter — the 
greatest of our warriors passed onward into the valley 
of shadows, and to immortality. 

Thirty years have passed since that which struck 
from our muster rolls the name of our first and fore- 
most general — thirty years, as these pages are given to 
the light, since that summer day on which, with the 
highest honors and the greatest retinue ever accorded to 
.\merican citizen or soldier, the flag-enshrouded casket 
was borne almost the length of all Manhattan ; Han- 
cock, the superb on many a battlefield, heading the 
league-long procession of soldiery, the world-garnered 
dignitaries from every state and clime. Amidst the 
solemn thunder of the guns of the warships moored 
along the Hudson, the farewell volleys of the troops 
aligned along the heights, in the presence of the Presi- 
dent and cabinet, the supreme court and the diplomatic 
corps, the governors of nearly every commonwealth, 
eminent soldiers, sailors, veterans of the Civil War, the 
gray mingling with the blue, and all engulfed in a vast 
multitude of mourners, the final prayers were said, 
the last benediction spoken, and under the shadow of the 
beloved flag he had served with such fidelity and to 
such eminent purpose, they laid to rest the honored 
soldier whose valiant serv-ice had secured to them and 
to their posterity the blessings of union, progress and 
tranquillity, and whose crowning message to the nation 

388 



THE FINAL BLOW 

he had restored was the simple admonition, " Let us 
have peace." 

And in those thirty years the people of our land 
have had abundant time to study and to reflect. Each 
succeeding year adds to their reverence for their greatest 
friend, leader and statesman, Abraham Lincoln. Each 
succeeding year seems to increase their appreciation of 
their greatest soldier, Ulysses Grant, and yet it some- 
times seems as though in the magnitude of the obstacles 
overcome, the immensity of the military problems 
solved, the supreme soldiership of the man has blinded 
us for the time to other virtues, less heroic, perhaps, 
yet not less marked and true, virtues as son, as husband, 
father and friend, not often equalled in other men, if 
ever excelled. 

And was there nothing more? 

Of Newcome, his modest hero, his kindliest gentle- 
man, Thackeray says, " The humblest in his own opinion, 
he was furious if any one took a liberty with him," yet 
our Western soldier suffered many an indignity, furious 
only when one he loved was scorned or slighted. New- 
come could blush to the temples at reference to his 
deeds: Grant blushed to the roots of his hair when, 
as in the case of the poor woman whose little children 
he offered to see safely through their journey, he had 
to mention his title and name. Froissart's Chronicles 
he may never have read, but in all their pages is there 
finer picture of soldier courtesy than that which fol- 
lowed the great surrender, that which Canon Farrar 
proclaimed as " faultless in delicacy " when the Vir- 
ginia Cavalier found his match, not only in the ranks 
of war, but in all that makes the courteous, considerate, 
consummate gentleman, in our silent soldier-citizen from 
the hills of western Illinois. 

And was not his a marvellous career? Cradled in 
the cottage, he spoke for years from the seat of the 
mightiest. Chosen and trained for his country's wars, 

389 



THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT 

he best loved the arts of peace. Schooled as a regular, 
he to the fullest extent and from the very first believed 
in the volunteer. Ignored by book and bureau soldiers 
at the start despite the fine record of the Mexican cam- 
paigns, indebted to a Western governor for the oppor- 
tunity refused him by the War Department, he held his 
modest way, uncomplaining, asking only to be made of 
use. One year had raised him from the twilight of a 
Western town to the triumi)h of Donclson ; two years 
made him the victor of Vicksburg, the head of the 
armies of the West ; three had set him in supreme com- 
mand, deferred to even by those who late as 'G2 had 
sought to down him; four and the sword of the chivalric 
Lee was his to do with as he would — the rebellion 
crushed, the war ended, and then, with our martyred 
Lincoln lying in the grave ever watered by a nation's 
tears, small wonder was it that twice the people held 
Grant long years at their head, and when he had re- 
turned from tiiat globe-circling triumphal progress, in 
large numbers would again have called him to the White 
House, an uncrowned monarch, the chosen of sover- 
eign citizens. Was he greater then than in the chain 
of ills that followed? Tricked by those he trusted, 
himself unskilled in guile, ruined financially by those 
he had been taught to hold infallible, and finally con- 
fronted by the dread conviction that, though barely be- 
yond the prime of life, his days were numbered — was he 
ever amid the thunder of saluting cannon and the cheers 
of countless multitudes so great as when, with the grim 
destroyer clutching at his throat, he fought for life 
that through those matchless Memoirs he might earn 
the means to wipe out every possible obligation and 
provide in modest comfort, at least, for those he loved 
and must so soon leave to mourn him? fin those last 
heroic days at Mt. McGregor he stood revealed in 
his silent suflFering, the ideal of devotion, endurance 
and determination, until, his great work done, his toil 

390 



THE FINAL BLOW 

and trials ended, his sword long since sheathed, his pen 
now dropping from the wearied, nerveless hand, he 
could turn to the Peace Ineffable and sink to rest — our 
greatest soldier — our honored President — our foremost 
citizen. Aye, soldier, statesman, loyal citizen he was 
and yet more, for in purity of life, in love of home and 
wife and children, in integrity unchallenged, in truth and 
honor unblemished, in manner simplicity itself — though 
ever coupled with that quiet dignity that made him peer 
among the princes of the earth — in speech so clean that 
oath or execration never soiled his lips, unswerving 
in his faith, a martyr to his friendships, merciful to the 
fallen, magnanimous to the foe, magnificent in self- 
discipline, was he not also, and in all that the grand 
old name implies. Grant — the gentleman? 

THE END 



J 



INDEX 



Academy, U. S. Military (sec- 
West Point) 

Alexis, Duke, 375 

Ammen, Admiral, 27 

Ancestry, 13-16 

Arthur, Chester A., 381, 382, 
386 

Arthur of Connaught, Prince, 

375 
Aspinwall, 124 
Augur, C. C, 129, 284 
Ayotla, Grant meets General 

Lee at, 102 
Ayres, General, 317 
"Aztecs," the, 116, 119 
Babcock, Orville E., 321, 354, 

366, 367 
Badeau, Adam, 189, 270, 321, 

347, 348, 355, 366, 374, Z7<^, 

382 
Baker, E. D., 157 
Baptismal name, 12, 13 
Bartlett, Prof. W. H. C, 50, 51, 

Belgium, royal welcome m, 377 

Belknap, William W., 359, 360 

Belmont, battle, 159 

Benny Havens, 44 

Berard, Prof. Claudius, 51, 60 

Big Black River, 229, 236 

Birth, 19 

Birthplace, 12 

Bliss, W. W. S., 54, 55, 99, 127 

Bonneville, Colonel, 121, 130, 

241 
Borie, Adolph E., 352-354, 368 
Boutwell, George S., 353 
Bowers, Lieut.-Col., 257, 278, 

302, 304, 331 
Boyhood, Grant's, 22-28 
Bragg, General, 248, 264, 265, 

267 
Brevets, Grant's own, 107, 119 
Brevets of Mexican War, 106, 

107 



Brigadiers, the first, 155, 156 
Brown, Ossawatomie, 17 
Bruinsburg, 227, 236 
Buchanan, James, 354 
Buchanan, Lieut. -Col. R. C, 

126-130, 241, 242 
Buckner, S. B., 67, 130, 169, 170- 

174 387 
Buell, D. C, 67, 75, 155, 176, 177, 

192, 193, 197, 202, 204, 221, 

242, 259 
Buena Vista, 100 
Burnside, General, 286, 304, 314, 

315 
Butler, Benjamin F., 280, 282, 

288, 305, 306, 314 
Calumnies after Shiloh, 205 
Carrollton, 250, 251 
Casey, Mr., 369, 370^ 
Casualties of Mexican War, 

92-94 
Cedar Creek, 282 
Chalco, Lake, 102, 320 
Champion's Hill, 228, 236, 237 
Chancellorsville, battle, 240 
Chapultepec, 109 
Chase, Salmon P., 253, 353, 381 
Chattanooga, 257, 258 
Chetlain, Aug., 137, 140, 148 
Chickamauga, battle, 248, 255, 

261 
Cholera in camp, 124 
Church, Col. A. C, 21, 207 
Church, Prof. A. E., 45, 47, 358 
Church's estimate of Grant, 21, 

71 
Churubusco, 105, 108 
City Point, 282 
Clan Grant, 14, 58 
Classmates, 40, 41 
Cleburne, Pat, 268, 291 
Clemens, Samuel L. (Mark 

Twain), 385 
Cleveland, Grover, 386 



393 



INDEX 



Cold Harbor, 278, 288, 311 
Collins, E. A., 149 
Columbia Barracks, 126, 127 
Comstock, General, 284, 355 
Conkling, Roscoe, 380 
Connaught, Prince Arthur of, 

375 
Coppee's reminiscences, 64, 05 
Corbyn, Mr., 348 
Corinth, 190 
Cox, Jacob D., 352 
Cozzens, Theodore, 360 
Cresswell, Postmaster-General, 

352 
Crittenden, General, 201, 202, 

222, 255, 261 
Crook, George, 129, 282 
Cullum, George \V., 49, 50, 186, 

187, 33(i 
Cumberland, Army of the, 249, 

255, 260-266 
Custer, George A., 281, 321, 322, 

334 
Czar of Russia, 375 
Dana, Charles A., 226, 227, 243, 

251, 255, 257, 267. 284 
Davies, General, 281 
Davies, Prof., estimate of 

Grant, 71 
Davis, Jefferson, 117, 318, 387 
Dent, Frederick F., 77-79. 344 
Dent, Frederick T., 69, 76, 77, 

79, 309. 321, 355. 366 
Dent, Julia. 76-79, 119 
Deshorn, George, 40, 123 
Donelson, Fort, 170-173, 210 
Douglas, Dr. J. H., 385 
Douglas, Stephen A., 223 
Dragoons and mounted rifles, 

71 
Dream, Grant s, 56 
Dudley, Earl of, 377 
Duncan, James, loi, 113, 114 
Early, General, 282 
Estimate of Grant, Davies', 71 

Hardee's, 71 

Mahan's, 53 
Ewell, Richard S., 82. 240 
Family influences, 166, 167, 368 



Farrar, Canon, 389 

Father (Jesse Root Grant), 
16-18, 148, 149, 153, i()7, 168 

Fifteenth Army Corps, 225 

Fifth Cavalry, 356 

Fillmore, Millard, 335 

Final standing, 7 

Fish, Hamilton, 354, 363, 368, 
373 

Five Forks, 316 

Foote, Admiral, 169, 170 

Forrest, N. B., 291-293, 296 

Fort Donelson, 170-173, 210 

Fort Fisher, 314 

Fort Henry, 169, 170 

"Fort Henry is ours," 170 

Fort Sumter 

Franklin, battle at, 291, 292 

Franklin, William B., 40 

Fredericksburg, 239 

Fremont, John C., 147, 149, 158, 
161, 180 

Fry's reminiscences, 64 

Galena, I35-I37. 235, 248, 380 

Garfield, James A., 381, 382 

Genealogy, 14 

Georgetown, Ohio, 12 

Gettysburg, battle, 240 

Gordon's victory over Sedg- 
wick, 279 

Granger, Gordon, 267 

Grant "man of mystery," 13; 
ancestry, 18; birth, 19; broth- 
ers and sisters, 20; boy- 
hood, 22 ; schools, 25, 26 ; 
characteristics, 28; illness, 
29; farm life, 22-30; ap- 
pointment as cadet, 31 ; aver- 
sion to soldier's life, 33; 
prophecy, 35 ; plcbehood ; 
home letters, 38, 39; cadet 
days; classmates, standing of, 
40, 41, 61 ; horsemanship, 27- 
29, 63-65 ; smoking, 43 ; short- 
comings, 46; professors, 49- 
55; sergeancy, 61, 62; com- 
rades, 66-68, 02-94; gradua- 
tion and assignment, 69-71 ; 
subaltern life, 72-79; meet- 



394 



INDEX 



ing with Dent family, 70 ; 
courtship, 77*79 ; engage- 
ment, 83, 84; aversion to the 
Mexican war, 85 ; to dwell- 
ing, 86 ; subordination, 85, 86 ; 
commands company at 
Resaca, 92 ; bravery in battle, 
92, 97, 98; made quarter- 
master, 95, 96; heroism at 
Monterey, 96, 97 ; meeting 
with Lee, 102, 103; declines 
brevet, 107, 108 ; gallantry at 
Molino, 108, 109; brilliant ex- 
ploit at San Cosme, 110-112; 
Grant thanked by three com- 
manders, 112; brevet captain, 
112; robbed of $1000, 119; 
leave of absence and mar- 
riage, 120; stationed at 
Sackett Harbor, 121 ; longing 
to resign, 122, 129; efforts to 
find civil employment, 122; 
off for California, 124; 
cholera in camp, 124, 125 ; 
separation from wife and 
children, 126; loneliness and 
depression ; begins to drink, 
126; promotion, 127; move to 
Humboldt ; adverse influ- 
ences, 127; resignation, 128, 
129; hard luck in San Fran- 
cisco, 130; homeward bound, 
130; borrows of Buckner, 
131 ; return to family, 133 ; 
farmer, 133; life at Hard- 
scrabble, 134; moves to 
White Haven, 134; more 
hard luck, 134; fever and 
ague, 134 ; moves to town, 
134; real estate and col- 
lections, 134; failures, 134, 
135 ; moves to Galena, 135 ; 
clerk to younger brothers, 
135, 136 ; debts and despond- 
ency, 13s, 136; politics, 137; 
impending war; drills a 
militia company, 137, 138; 
declines captaincy, 140; goes 
to Springfield, 140, 145; clerk 



at $3 a day, 142 ; slave owner, 
142; meets Sherman, 143; 
seeks McClellan, 144; tender 
of service ignored, 144 ; ten- 
dered colonelcy ; assumes 
command, 145 ; first speech, 
145; discipline, 146, 147; on 
the march, 147, 148; father 
refuses aid, 148; commands 
brigade, 151 ; appointed brig- 
adier-general, U. S. v., 152, 
156; heads list for Illinois, 
152-154; Belmont and Mc- 
Clernand, 159; narrow es- 
cape, 159; snubs from Fre- 
mont, 158, 161 ; suspicions of 
Halleck, 158, 160, 161, 168; 
rebukes his father, 167, 168; 
moves on Fort Henry, 169, 
170; success, 170; capture of 
Donelson, 172; first major- 
general U. S. v., 178; popu- 
larity, 179; gifts, 179; cigars, 
180; Halleck's misjudgment, 
183; suspension from com- 
mand, 183 ; resumes com- 
mand, 187; truthfulness, 188; 
Buell's discourtesy, 194, 204; 
Shiloh, 195-203 ; more evil 
days ; again humiliated, 203 ; 
again chief in command, 212; 
compelled to remove gener- 
als, 214; the winter cam- 
paign, 214; McClernand's 
machinations, 214, 223, 226; 
warned by Wilson, 217 ; 
moves on Vicksburg, 224, 225 ; 
McClernand's disobedience, 
227-229, 237 ; bombardment, 
234; ride to the far front, 
23s ; crosses the Mississippi ; 
cuts loose from base, 236; 
brilliant campaign to Jackson, 
236 ; Sherman's remon- 
strance, 237 ; invests Vicks- 
burg ; forces its surrender, 
238; relaxation, 248; visits 
New Orleans; accident; on 
crutches, 250 ; Rawlins's 



395 



INDEX 



letter of warning, 251 ; cal- 
umnies, 251, 252; on to Chat- 
tanooga, 255, 258; meets 
Stanton, 255 ; Grant com- 
mands entire West, 255, 256 
relieves Rosecrans, 256 
Hooker's effrontery, 259 
strained relations with 
Thomas, 260, 266 ; wins out at 
Chattanooga, 263-265 ; efforts 
in behalf of Buell, McClellan 
et al., 271 ; made lieutenant- 
general, 275 ; at VVillard's 
Hotel, Washington, 275; the 
President's welcome, 276; 
dodges Washington en- 
tanglements ; goes to the 
front, 2-;y ; forward from the 
Rapidan, 278 ; electric mes- 
sage to Washington, 278; 
emotion over repulse, 279 ; 
determined advance, 279; in- 
vesting Petersburg, 282; ap- 
pearance in field, 287 ; non- 
chalance under fire, 288 ; 
crosses the James, 288; Cold 
Harbor; regrets, 288, 311; 
habits, 289; news of Nash- 
ville, 290 ; impatience with 
Thomas, 293; unjust orders, 
294; starts for Nashville, 298; 
stopped at Washington, 299; 
family at the front, 309; final 
campaign, 2,1^^22; the pur- 
suit of Lee, 319; mercy of- 
fered at Petersburg, 320 ; the 
dawn of Appomattox. 320; 
relentless pursuit, 320; 
Grant's illness, 320; meeting 
with Lee, 321 ; the dramatic 
surrender, 321 ; magnanimity 
and unselfishness, 321 ; re- 
turn to Washington, 322 ; 
enthusiasm of the nation, 
326; troubles with Johnson 
and Stanton, 327; Secretary 
of War ad interim, 338; 
breaks with the President and 
three of the Cabinet, 339; 



nominated for presidency, 
345 ; revisits Galena, 347 ; 
elected President, 347 ; reti- 
cence, 347 ; new methods, 
348; inaugural address; Mrs. 
Grant's anxiety, 350; first 
Cabinet ; errors, 352 ; Cabinet 
changes, 353 ; private secre- 
taries, 354, 355, 366; hfe at 
White House, 354; at West 
Point, 358, 360; relations 
with Secretary Fish, 354, 
363 ; with Belknap, 359, 360 ; 
antagonism of Sumner, 354, 
357. 367; presents of home- 
steads and other gifts, 367 ; 
family entanglements, 368; 
relations in office, 369; 
troublous years, 369, 370; 
second term ; close of admin- 
istration, 370, 371 ; Nellie's 
engagement and marriage ; 
Grant's forebodings, 3'j2, 
2)7i', journeys abroad, 373, 
374; public demonstrations at 
home, and reception in Eng- 
land by people, by Prince of 
Wales, by Queen, 27^-376; 
royal honors in Belgium and 
France, ^77; visits the East, 
378; China and Japan, 378; 
homeward bound, demon- 
stration at San Francisco and 
honors en route, 378; again 
a candidate; suffers first de- 
feat, 379; Chicago Conven- 
tion, 1880, 379; aids Garfield, 
380 ; breaks with Washburne, 
380; settlement in civil life, 
380; travels further, 380; 
enters Wall Street ; Grant 
& Ward, 381 ; affluence, 381 ; 
anxieties, 382; calamity, be- 
trayal, financial ruin, 384; 
rallying friends, 385; expert 
examination of throat, 385; 
failing health, 385 ; final cam- 
paign and struggle, 386: writ- 
ing his Memoirs, 386; re- 



396 



INDEX 



stored to rank in army, 386; 
removed to Mount Mc- 
Gregor, 387; last days; 
death, 388; funeral cere- 
monies, 388; summary of 
character, 389-391 ; tributes 
to Grant — the gentleman, 
390, 391 
Grant & Ward, 381-384 
Grant clan and motto, 14 
Grant, Frederick Dent, 243, 290, 
309, 335. 358, 359. 369, 375. 
380 
Grant, Hannah S., 18, 19, 23 
Grant, Jesse Root, 13-16, 19, 3°- 
33, 119, 148, 167,205,252,253, 

Grant, Jesse (the younger), 
308, 324, 348, 375, 376 

Grant, Julia Dent, 76-78, 82, 83, 
119, 133, 138, 167, 205, 235, 
245, 247, 257, 275, 300, 308-310, 
323, 324, 340, 344. 348-351, 356, 
358. 359, 368, 371-380, 382, 
384, 386 ^ ^^ 

Grant, Nellie, 372-374, 3^3, 386 

Grant orders Thomas relieved, 
296, 297 

Grant's emotion in the wilder- 
ness, 279 

Grant, Ulysses, Jr., 377, 381, 382, 

Gravois road, 82 
Gregg, David McM., 281 
Halleck, H. W., 130, 150, 160, 
161, 169, 175, ^77, 179-186, 
192, 197, 198, 203-213, 224, 
241, 248, 249, 250, 260, 275, 
280, 281, 294-298 
Halleck's telegram, 177 
Hall's Ferry, 229 
Hamer, Thomas L., 31. 32, 99 
Hamilton, C. S., 133, 156, 176. 

213 
Hancock, Winfield S., 67, 231, 

284, 28s, 314, 341, 342, 387, 

388 
Hardee, tactician, 217 
Hardee's estimate of Grant, 71 



Hardscrabblc, 133, 134, 235, 248 
Havens, Benny 44 
Hay, John, 3O5 
Hayes, Alex., 67 
Hayes, Rutherford B., 371 
Henry, Fort, 109, 170 
Herron, General, 287 
Historical Society Library, 

Chicago, 301 
Hitchcock, Ethan A., 74, 75. 98, 

99, 132, 154 
Hoar, Attorney-General, 352, 

353 
Hodges, Henry C., 129, 188 
Holly Springs, 220, 221 
Hood, General, 289, 291-299 
Hooker, Joseph, 156, 192. 239. 

240, 241, 258, 259, 284, 286 
Hornets' Nest, 199 
Hoskins, Chas., 92, 95, 97 
Humboldt, Fort, 125, i-V, 128 
Humphreys, General, 314 
Hurlbut, S. A., 156, 191, 200, 

213, 214 „ , 

"I cannot spare this man, 200 
Ingalls, Rufus, 163, 188, 284, 

347, 355 

Island No. 10, 207 

Tackson, Andrew, 132 

Jackson, Thomas J. (Stone- 
wall), 68, 123, 212, 240, 277 

Jefferson Barracks, 69, 74, 81, 
82, 120 

Johnson, Andrew, 327-329, 334 
ct scq. 

Johnston, A. S., 181, 182, 185. 
189, 191-194, 197. 199 

Johnston, Joseph E., 236, 267, 

318 
Kautr, A. V.. 129 
Kellogg, aide, 263 
Kendrick, Henry S., SI 
Kilpatrick, General, 281 
Kittoe, Dr., 255 
Lee, Francis, 121, 125 
Lee, Robert E., 18, 202, 240, 

277-279- 318-322 
at Appomattox, 318, 

321 



397 



INDEX 



Lee, Robert E., meeting with 
Grant in Mexico, 
102, 214, 320 
surrender of, 212, 320- 
322 
Lieutenant-general, office of, 
271, 275. 276 
Grant's acceptance of, 
276 
Lincoln, 13, 178, 179, 206, 222, 
223, 231, 240, 275, 276, 278, 
289. 298, 318, Z2-], 328, ZiZ, 
353, 354, 365, 366, 389 
Lincoln's wish as to Grant s 

whiskey, 231 
Logan, John A., 145, 192, 298 
Longstreet, James, 07. 84, 119. 

240. 248, 277 
McCall, Captain, 91, 9^, 156 
McClellan, 63. 68, 127, 144, My. 
169, 180, 183, 184, 187, 208, 
211, 220, 242. 271. 311 
McClernand, E- J., 212. 
McClernand, J. A., I57, 159. 169- 
171, 191, 192. 199. 200, 213, 214, 
222-232, 236, 2yj, 243. 251. 
271, 272 
McClcrnand's defiance, 229 

relief. 232 
McCook, General, 201, 222, 255, 

261 
McDowell, General, 212 
Macfeely, General, 284 
McGregor, Mount, 387, 390 
McPherson, J. B., 103. 198, 203. 
215-217. 230. 2^], 24S, 284, 287 
Magruder. " Prince John," 248 
Mahan. Prof. D. H.. 50, 53. 358 
Mahan's estimate of Grant, 53 
"Mark Twain," 385 
Marriage, 110-121 
Mason, "Julc" 35^ 
Meade, General, 240, 248, 281, 
282, 284-286, 304. 30s, 313-320, 
330 
Mechanics' Institute, New Or- 
leans, 342 
Mendcnhall, General, 202 
Mcrritt, General, 281 



Mexican War, Grant's record 

in, 115 

heavy casualties of, 94 

heavy losses of West 

Point, 116 

Military Academy (sec West 

Point) 
Mine Run, 285 
Missionary Ridge, 264-268 
Mississippi, Army of the, 224, 

226, 248 
Molino del Rey, 108, 109 
Monterey, Grant at, 97, 98 
Mother (Hannah S.), 18, 19. 

22-24, 30 
Mother, letters to, 23, 38, 39 
Motto of Clan Grant, 58 
Mount McGregor, 387, 390 
Murfreesboro, 222, 239, 261, 

296 
Nashville, 290, 292, 298 
Natchez, 248 
Nelson, 200 
New Carthage, 235 
Newman, Dr., 342 
New Orleans, visit and acci- 
dent at, 250 
Nicolay, John G., 365 
Northern Virginia, Army of, 

319-321 
Ogelsby, Richard, 153 
O'Hara. Thco., 117. 118 
Ohio, Army of the, 213. 221, 

239, 261 
"Old Brains," 207. 20S 
Orchard Knob, 264 
Ord, E. O. C, 282, 314, 320, 

321 
Palo Alto, 91, 107 
Panama Isthmus, crossing, 124 
Parker, Colonel, aide, 321 
Parker, John G., 314 
Pemberton. General, in, 236- 

238, 244 
Perryville, 221 
Petersburg, 282 
Pickett, Geo. E., 68 
Pierce, Franklin, 114 



398 



INDEX 



Pillow, G. J., 104, 107, 113, ib8, 

170, 171, 175 
Pitcher, Thomas G., 68, 145, 

146, 33(> 

Pittsburg Landing, 191, 200 

Pitzman, Major, 203 

Point Pleasant, Ohio, 12 

Pleasonton, General, 281 

Pope, General, 207, 210-212 

Porter, David D., 234 

Porter, Horace, 163, 188, 269, 
270, 284, 286, 288, 289, 300, 
302, 306, 321, 347, 354, 366, 
382 

Port Gibson, 227, 236 

Potomac, Army of, 211, 212, 
239, 258, 284, 287, 300, 330 

Prentiss, B. M., 153-156, 160, 
196, 199, 201 

Quartermaster, Grant as, 95- 
97, no, 120 

Quinby, Professor, 123 

Rawlins, John A., 137, 162-164, 
179, 209, 213, 215-219, 224, 
227-229, 244-247, 250, 251, 
257, 259, 262, 269, 272, 275, 
277-279, 286, 302, 303, 306, 
309, 321, 34^. 343, 347, 349. 
352, 355, 367 

Rawlins, Wilson's picture of, 
219 

Rawlins's appeal, 251 
outbreak, 253, 254 

Rebuke to his father, 167, 168. 

253 

Resaca, 91 

Reynolds, J. J., «:: 156, 176 

Richmond, Va., 282 

Robbery of $1000, 120 

"Rock of Chickamauga," 269 

Rosecrans, J., 67, 150, 213, 221, 
222, 239, 248, 249, 255-261, 
349, 350 

Rosecrans relieved from com- 
mand, 256 

Rowley, 209, 302, 304 

Sackett Harbor, 121, 126 

Samana Bay, 363 

San Cosme gate, 108, 110-112 



San Domingo, 357, 363 

Sanitary Commission, 311 

Sartoris, Algernon, 372, 373 

SchafT, Morris, 44 

Schofield, John M., 296, 297, 
352 

Schurz, Carl, 332 

Scott, Winfield, 45, 55, 56, 74, 
89, 113, 114, 337 
tribute to West Point, 
114 

Sedgwick, General, 279, 281, 
284, 285, 314 

Seventeenth Army Corps, 225 

Seward, William H., 339, 353, 
362 

Sheridan, 18, 129, 264, 267, 
268, 280-283, 284, 285, 311, 
312, 31S-321, 330, 331, 342, 
380 

Sherman, 18, 37, 66, 82, 155, 
161, 181, 183, 189, 191, 192, 
194-202, 204-210, 213, 216, 
230, 233, 237, 2\2, 243, 248- 
251, 257, 260, 264, 265, 268, 
272-274, 282, 284, 285, 292, 
301, 311, 324-326, 328,-331. 
335, 337, 338, 347, 365, 366, 
375 

Sherman's analysis of Grant, 

273. 274 
Shiloh, 189, 190, 194-196, 198, 
202, 203 
calumnies after, 205 
Simpson, Hannah, 18, 23 
Sixteenth Army Corps, 325 
Sixth Army Corps, 316 
Slave owner, Grant as a, 142 
Smith, C. F., 51, 52, 61-63, 161, 

169-172, 176, 181-183, 189, 191, 

200, 242, 251 
Smith, C. F., Grant's tribute to, 

188 
Smith, W. F. (Baldy), 68, 281, 

288, 289 
Southwestern Department, 225 
Spear, Hon. ]\Ir., 370 
Spottsylvania, 278 



399 



INDEX 



Springfield. Grant at, 142 
Sunton, t. M., 17V. ^1. ^^. 

iJ9. ^So. 2SS. -5^. -^57. ^73. 

27 S. -^5. ■i'M- '-*/». J' A J07. 

327. i^^iii. Jj8, JJ9. J49 
Stcvcnion, -57-^59 
Stewart. A. t, J49. 352-3S4 
Stone. Charlcj I'.. uSj 
Stoneman, (.crirral, j.Si 
Stuart, General. Jkt. j8i 
Sumner, Charles. ^. J53. JM- 

J57. J<*-'-1<H. J<^7 Jf'J. J«i 
Swinton. Mr^ JOJ-J05 
Taculajra. tn«x ix> 
Taylor. Dick. 34J 
Tavl.-r, Zachary, 54. 81, 8a 99. 

«"^. 34J 
Tencler of »ervice. Grant'?. 

UJ. 144 



Thayer. >^i\4nij*. 4j 
Thrft of il«i»). IK) 

Thirtrrnih Army Corp«. aJ5. 

Thi'Mi4<. < .e^rK'*" H '• 
ir-j. 1'^-. «•;». -■' " 
a.#]i JS?. J57. j'*> -■"■ -'"^ 
jfta Jfh-snn, J15. J^i 3J<'. 

Thomai. Grant order* him re 

Iirv' "/■ TT 
T I ' 116 

T ! ' 

T ' j«j 

1 (• . lo^-i 17 

\\*\ «urrrnd*r." 174 

^ jT, 3R3 

\'era Crux, 100 



Vicksbura;. 224, 330, 2jj tt seq., 

, -:jS. -'48 
N'lctona, Queen, 374-J76 
Wade, Benjamin I-., jOj 
Wallace, l-ew. 197. joo, X)i 
Wallace. W. H.. i.^ 
\\ ■"-•■ 'ii)uvcrncur K.. 2^1, 
i«4-.U7 

\, :-. Lhhu n.. IJ7. 

147. iw>. xt). 2S-. ■?7i. 30.V 
347. 349. 35-J. 3*5 
Wedding. Grant's, IX), um 
Welles. Gideon, 330 
West Point. 35, yr^. 40 4^. 5- 
61. 7J. H8. 114. 117 
hea%y losses of. qj, 

lib 
Scott'* tribute to. 114 
White Haven. •/>, mq. ijo. jio 
Wilcr>x. Cadmu», gntomsman. 

IJO 

WiMerness, Grant's emotion in, 

-r9 

Wil'ard, aiilr. 36a 
\'. M. V*y 

\' .40 

. iifi, at7 
H. 216-210. 
-.4. -.7 • H. ast. 

-J^JU 2<7 ' 'f73. 

•: ■- . -■--■. 2V> 

1 1 
V : . A a), 353 

W 

V. '. 3«7 

\V ««^>H. I irneral. Xv4 

Worth, W. F, 4S. ^ «oo. n 1 

114 
Wriitht. General. 314. 3»<> 
Yaie«. Richard. 141. Ua. ife. 

.;.'4. i.J7. ^71 
Yellow Tavern. Va . .'"o 
Young. John Russell. 380 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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